


The Impressionist

by JRC10



Series: Aura [2]
Category: General Hospital
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 04:42:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18276017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JRC10/pseuds/JRC10
Summary: The Impressionist is a sequel to Aura.Alexis and Adrian are back!If you haven't read Aura, I recommend reading it before you start this story.





	1. Prologue: Legacy

Prologue

_______________________________

Legacy

_______________________________

 

Hate was so intricately tied to love, or so her mother tried to teach her. Her mother hated with a fervent passion; a legacy given to her from her own mother, bestowed from her grandmother before her, and her great-grandmother before that.

She sat in the small house she was forced to reside in because of that man. He OWED her! He spent his life in luxury and leisure, while she and her mother were stuck in what may well have been poverty! 

She was a smart, young woman. A talented and beautiful woman. She knew she could make her own fortune if she committed herself to doing so. But revenge was a greater fuel for hatred than acceptance.

The female line of her family was clearly the stronger line. Her father was sick and weak. That BASTARD was sick and weak! She needed to put him in his place.

She’d get her revenge. For the love of her mother and the love of herself, she’d make things right in a way her mother was never able to do on her own...and she'd take away everything important to HIM in the process...


	2. The Best Laid Plans

The Best Laid Plans

_______________________________

 

“Please don’t be angry.”

If looks could kill, Adrian’s body would never be found again. Alexis was seething. He climbed a rock and turned around to help pull her up.

“I did it for your own good,” he said. His words didn’t help the murderous look on her face. “Alexis…” 

Her glare pushed him back. She clumsily tried to scramble up the rock on her own. He stifled a laugh. His woman was lithe and graceful...until she needed to be athletic. 

She finally allowed him to give her a hand. He pulled her close when she made it up. He kissed her softly on the temple, trying to temper her agitation.

“Don’t even think about it,” she warned, pushing him away.

“Mujer…” he pleaded. As they followed the path next to the stream, Adrian could hear the waterfall getting closer. 

“I haven’t even heard an apology,” she pouted with those intoxicating lips. It was almost worth it to piss her off just to see those cheeks suck in and those lips pop out. 

He wasn’t sorry, but he’d placate her. “I’m sorry.”

She scoffed, “You don’t mean that.”

He shrugged. She wasn’t wrong. “Come on, woman, you needed me to intervene.”

Apparently, his comment wasn’t deemed worthy of a response. They walked on, the sound of the falls getting louder as they approached.

“So what?” he asked. “Are you going to ignore me the rest of this trip?”

“Since you’ve decided it necessary for me to ignore everyone else in my life, I think it’s only fair you get the same treatment.”

The woman had been on her phone and laptop half the damn holiday. And it wasn’t her daughters she was talking to either, which he may have been able to forgive. It was business. “Everyone in your life? Since when has your brother been considered ‘everyone in your life’?”

“Valentin is redistributing a large number of assets. I can’t just disappear off the face of the earth right now. I need to ensure everything goes smoothly. Especially considering most of the assets are going to my daughters and grandchildren. I need my phone and laptop back!”

He grumbled, “I thought you wanted nothing to do with your family’s fortune? Why have you suddenly changed your mind?”

She softened her face for the first time. “Because Helena made my ties to the Cassadine family something to fear and loathe. Something to reject. Mikkos and Kristin...I mean, my mother and father, have given me new perspective. I’d like my family to have a piece of their legacy.”

Adrian hung his head. He wanted to support Alexis’s budding relationship with Kristin. “Fine, here.” 

Adrian pulled her phone out of his pocket and held it out to her. She released a loud sigh of relief, as though being separated from the damn thing caused her physical pain. That pissed him off even more. “Ay, mujer…” he rumbled, tension building. He told himself not to do it. 

Alexis must have seen the change in his expression. “Adrian, give it to me.”

Adrian looked to his left and saw nothing but bushes and trees. To his right…the waterfall.

“Don’t you dare…” the tone of her voice would’ve been terrifying if he wasn’t so pissed off that she’d spent their whole damn trip in Baja on her phone!

He looked left and right again, contemplating where to throw it.

“Adrian! Give it to me now!”

He couldn’t contain the growl that ripped through him when he threw the phone aside, not really certain which direction it fell. He stepped forward and closed the gap between them.

“I can’t believe you…!” She hit him on his chest.

“Look, woman!” He grabbed her jaw and turned her head to the right. “Look at where you are!” He stared at the dark water pouring over the fall, crashing down thirty feet below. The view beyond revealed a canyon that emptied into the vast Pacific Ocean. 

Alexis looked stunned at their surroundings, as though she hardly knew they were in Baja...as though she hardly knew they were even outdoors. “Look who you’re with!” he turned her face to his. 

“The Cassadine legacy will always be there, always a thorn in your side. But this moment won’t! It will be gone tomorrow! Gone in a sunset. Gone in a breath. And if you don’t pay attention, it won’t even be a memory.”

Her mouth dropped open. He wasn’t sure if it was in response to what he said, or to his manhandling of her. He knew how much she loved a strong hand. He could feel the hitch of her breath against his lips. Anger had turned to shock, and the shock was already being overtaken by a heated expression. Her dark eyes were hooded. Her body stopped struggling to push away from him, and began squirming against him.

There she was...finally!

Adrian hooked her ankles with his foot, dropping her to the ground, holding her waist and head so she wouldn’t be hurt by the fall. The large rock they lay on was only feet from the cliff. His mouth crushed down on hers, and her tongue was waiting for him. 

Earlier that morning, when he watched her put on her adorable white, cotton, summer dress, he planned to unwrap her in a slow and seductive manner on top of the falls, and make sweet love to her on their last day in Baja. But the best made plans of lawyers and artists often go awry. Instead, he pulled it up from the bottom tugging the fabric over her head. He unsnapped her bra and yanked it off her arms. He thought he might’ve ripped her panties as he pulled them down her legs, and threw them aside. 

Her hands were reaching up his shirt, scratching his back. She’d leave marks again. He pulled his lips away from her mouth and sat back on his heels staring down at her. He looked at the falls, the wilderness, the canyon, and the ocean beyond. It had NOTHING on her. Nothing! 

“¡Eres una mujer hermosa y frustrante!” he said shaking his head and running his hands over her body. His latest fascination was with her hips. He gripped them tight, his fingers sinking into the flesh of her backside, while his thumbs rubbed over the firm bone. He lifted her pussy to his mouth, found her clit, and sucked deep.

“Adrian!” she cried. He may have pulled too hard. He lay her down on the ground and spread her wide. He licked her clit in nurturing apology. He kissed it softly and offered gentle caresses back and forth. 

She squirmed underneath him as his tongue circled around, over and over. He licked her up and down, listening to her moan his name. When she pulled his hair, he knew she was no longer thinking about trust funds for the grandkids. When she bucked her hips as his tongue flicked quickly over her clit, he knew thoughts of transferring assets were gone. She was there with him, just the two of them. No more Valentin, no more Cassadines, just her quivering cunt in his mouth.

She tensed and screamed as she came. He licked up her cum, knowing it drove her nuts to be devoured that way. Her nails were digging into his scalp every time her body convulsed. 

He slowed his licks to languid strokes until her body settled down. He could hear her ragged breath over the sound of the falls. He smirked against her pussy knowing how he wanted her to come next.

After stripping himself down, he crawled over her body, running his tongue and lips over his favorite parts along the way. Her waiting mouth latched greedily onto his. His arms snaked around her body, and he rolled backward shifting her on top of him. She kissed and kissed him, positioning her legs so her cunt hovered above his cock. She had yet to look up to see the position he put her in. 

He pulled his lips away and nodded for her to look in front of her. She lifted her gaze to the view and sat bolt upright. Her eyes widened in wonder. He couldn’t hear her gasp, but he knew it was there. The view could take one’s breath away on a bad day, but when blindsided during the after effects of an orgasm and sitting astride a lover, it could render a set of lungs useless. 

He grabbed her hips and lifted. His cock found her hot, wet pussy, and he pulled her down just as he pushed up his cock up inside her. The falls didn’t cover her scream that time. After a few thrusts of his hips, Alexis took over and rode his cock on top of the waterfall. Her conflicted eyes looked from Adrian to the view, and back to Adrian. But as her second orgasm drew closer, her eyes dropped to Adrian and couldn’t let go. 

She was a vision bouncing up and down on top of him. He cursed his inefficient hands for not being able to touch more of her at once. He massaged her slick clit as she rolled her hips, setting her off again. 

As orgasm wracked her body, he rolled over and fucked her hard and fast. He could still feel her squeezing him as his orgasm built up like a vise grip in his chest, down his gut, and erupted through his cock. Nothing had ever felt as good as shooting his cum deep in his woman’s pussy. 

They lay on top of the falls, cuddled together, listening to the sound of the water. “I’m keeping you up here for another three days,” he said. 

She smiled and kissed him in acquiescence. “Ok.”

“Ok? You’d let me steal you away from work that long?”

“After what you just did to me, I’d agree to anything you suggested right now.”

“Is that so? Anything?” His thoughts drifted to the diamond ring in the pocket of his discarded pants.

“Mmmhmm. Anything.”

But the opportunity came and went. He didn’t want to ask knowing they’d be going home in the morning. They’d taken a long Veteran’s day weekend in Baja, to some property he owned just north of Cabo San Lucas. He thought he might propose in that very spot. But he didn’t want to ask on a day they’d been fighting. She might second guess herself. Maybe he’d ask over winter break when he intended to take her to Greece for the holidays. 

If he could wait that long…

“It’s really gotten out of control, hasn’t it?” she said.

“What, my love?” He stroked the hair out of her face.

“Work. I’m supposed to be slowing down at this stage in my career, enjoying my life. But I seem to only be taking more on.”

“Your brother takes advantage of you.” Adrian was conflicted about Alexis’s budding relationship with Valentin. Her brother was generously giving up much of his inheritance to her family, but Adrian couldn’t shake the sinister feeling he sometimes had when they went to visit Valentin at Wyndemere.

She nodded. “I need to either take on less work, or I need more help getting the work done.”

“Or both.”

She gave him an accusatory look. “Look who’s talking.”

She was right. He was so damn busy at work, he hardly had time for his personal art. And if he made time for his personal work, then he either neglected Alexis, or risked dysregulating himself and triggering a Bipolar episode. And he didn’t want to have to go up on his medication because he wasn’t taking care of himself. So his art had taken the biggest hit from his time and attention. “You’re right. I could use some help, too. Maybe I should get an assistant, like you did.”

Alexis nodded. “Natalie’s been a godsend. I was just thinking about hiring her full-time. Not just to help with work, like she’s been doing, but some personal things, too. Dry cleaning, picking up the grandkids from daycare, helping with some Christmas shopping. Do you think she’d be willing if I doubled her pay?” 

Adrian only ever had a few conversations with the timid girl and had no idea. “She’s a struggling college student, so maybe.”

“Do you want me to see if she has any friends she’d recommend to help you out?”

He shook his head, “No. I have a few students who I’d rather give the opportunity. Might be good for a grad school or job application.” Adrian didn’t care to toot his own horn, but he knew private galleries would salivate at hiring someone connected so closely to Adrian for a chance to have him show his work in their businesses.

Alexis stretched out in his arms, “So, does this mean we’ll have more time for afternoons like this?”

He nodded, “That’s the plan. Though, you better not use your free time to pick up more cases. Otherwise, I’ll kidnap you back here and throw all your electronics in the ocean.”

“I think I’d be begging you to do so if I had any more on my plate than I do now.”

As if on cue, one of the bushes nearby started ringing. Adrian didn’t want Alexis traipsing through the wilderness to find her phone, so he stood up and followed the sound. He endured a few scratches and scrapes in the bush before he fished it out. 

He answered the phone so it wouldn't go to voicemail. “Ms. Davis’s phone. One moment please.”

“Umm...Mr. Camilo, sir,” said the young woman’s voice on the phone. “I’m actually calling for you. It’s Natalie, sir.”

For him? “How can I help you?”

“It’s your painting...The Unarmed Boxer. It’s been defaced.”

“Defaced?” His jaw dropped in shock. No one had ever tried to destroy one if his pieces before. “What to do you mean, defaced?”

“I’ll send you a picture. But, Mr. Corinthos, the current owner, wants you consulted before the insurance company sends their investigators out.”

“Thank you, Natalie. Alexis and I will return tomorrow as planned. Please inform Mr. Corinthos I’ll visit him in the afternoon.”

“Thank you, sir. I hope you and Ms. Davis have had a nice trip.”

He felt a hand on his arm pulling him around as he hung up the phone. “What was defaced? Why are you visiting Sonny?” said Alexis with worry in her eyes.

A text message went through to the phone. A picture of Adrian’s painting that Corinthos purchased last Spring appeared onscreen. Enormous splotches of paint, mostly black and a deep crimson covered the subject of the painting. It was completely destroyed. 

“A seven figure painting,” said Adrian. “I can’t imagine the insurance company will be too pleased.”

“Oh my God! Someone must be threatening Sonny.” Adrian knew Alexis was worried about her daughters who always seemed to get caught up in the dangerous world of Corinthos.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Or maybe they just didn’t like the painting.”

Alexis laughed at his poor joke. No one would risk the wrath of Sonny Corinthos because they didn’t like a picture on his wall.

“Are you ok?” asked Alexis. She knew how possessive he was over his work.

Perhaps the reality of the defacement hadn’t set in yet, but Adrian was less concerned with the destruction, and more intrigued by the method in which it was done. “I’m fine,” he said, zooming in on the picture. He could tell from the look in Alexis’s eyes she didn’t believe he was fine for a moment.


	3. Defaced

Defaced

_______________________________

 

“You don’t seem very upset about the destruction of your painting,” said Alexis. 

He shrugged, “No sense in worrying about it until we see the damage up close. It may well be salvageable. And even if it’s not, if we worry about it now, we’d suffer now and then. I’d rather just suffer the one time.”

They sat waiting for Sonny in his restaurant. Alexis watched Adrian run his finger down her glass of ice water. He gathered the condensation on his fingertip, then, with his other hand, held her wrist to keep her still. 

He hovered his wet finger just above the back of her hand and watched the water drop to her skin. His blue eyes observed with scientific intensity what happened to the droplet as it landed on her hand.

Adrian was always doing strange things like that. There were times when her curiosity got the best of her and she had to ask what on Earth he was doing, but other times, she just watched his quiet genius and left him to his experiments. 

Today, she asked. “What are you doing?”

He repeated the process with another droplet of water from higher up. He didn’t take his eyes off the falling droplet as he said, “I had a dream of you last night in Cabo. I can’t get it out of my head. It’s a stunning visual.”

“Oh boy,” she said, and nerves raced in her belly.

She watched his lips curve into a smile, knowing what he wanted from her…he always painted his significant dreams. 

He dipped his hand into the glass and cupped a tablespoon of water before bringing it up and sprinkling it on her hand again. 

“Adrian!” she admonished. “We’re in a restaurant!”

He either heard nothing or ignored her. He grabbed her hand in both of his and tilted it back and forth, watching the water roll off either side.

“You’ll sit for me?” he asked.

She hesitated. “Why do you need me to sit for you? You know my body better than I do.” 

He chuckled, “It changes.”

She pulled her hand from his, “Are you saying I’ve gained weight? You’re the one carting me off to Cabo…”

“Oh, stop you obsessive woman,” he admonished, waving away her insecurity. “Eres más flaca que el palo de una escoba.”

“Then what do you mean, ‘I change’?”

He smiled, and grabbed her hand back and held it in both of his across the table. “Watch…” The light fixture above them cast a yellow glow over her skin. “You're a different color in the sunrise than you are in a sunset.” He shadowed her hand with his removing the yellow hue. 

He picked up a tea light burning in a cup on the table and brought it close to her hand. “You’re different in candlelight than starlight. Different still in the cloud-covered moonlight.” 

“Like Monet’s Rouen Cathedral?” 

He grinned and nodded like a proud professor. He turned her hand left and right, and he moved her fingers up and down. He continued, “And the way your body settles in different positions changes the appearance of its constitution.”

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her wrist. He nibbled gently and licked the sensitive skin. A rumble in his chest sounded as she flushed. He went on, “The level of arousal and exertion in your body changes the color, the texture, and even the taste.”

“Texture?”

He ran his fingers down her arm where goosebumps were rising.

“Oh,” she breathed. 

“Indeed.”

“And how are you going to convey the taste of my skin in a painting?” She bit her lip. 

“I’m not sure I can. But you can’t possibly think I’m going to stare at your naked, wet body for hours without indulging myself a little.” He licked his lips. “Besides, I’m going to need to keep up the flush of your skin to get the dream captured just right.” He kissed her wrist again.

She didn’t need anymore convincing. “I’m in.”

His grin spread further, crinkling up the corners of his eyes. She understood what he was talking about when he said she changes in different light as she watched the glow of the light fixture glitter in his crystal blues. 

“Your compliance is going to benefit us both, bella.”

She sighed like a love-struck teenager. 

A shadow moved over Adrian’s face. “Hello, Alexis. Mr. Camilo.”

“Mr. Corinthos,” said Adrian, putting out a hand and standing up. “I’m pleased to see you again, but regret the circumstances.”

Sonny grasped Adrian’s hand with both of his and shook firmly. “I’m truly sorry for what I allowed to happen to your painting. You know how fond I was of that piece. I underestimated the security needed to protect it.”

Adrian stood and walked around to pull out Alexis’s chair. “I didn’t realize it would need protecting, either. Most of my pieces are on display without much in the way of security.”

“Where is it, Sonny?” asked Alexis, as he leaned in to kiss her cheek.

“In my office. Come see.” Sonny lead them to a door off to the side of the restaurant. The painting was on the wall to their right, and due to the sheer size of it, they had to back up to the other end of the room to see the whole canvas. 

“Oh, dear God,” said Alexis. Her hand flew to her chest to steady her heart. 

She heard the air deflate from Adrian’s lungs. She grabbed his hand, but he’d gone completely slack. A sickly pallor overtook his skin; he looked utterly devastated.

“Adrian?” she said. She could only imagine what he was feeling. It was bizarre to her that he seemed almost unaffected since they heard the news; this was closer to the reaction she was expecting. 

Her eyes flashed back to the graffitied mess on the wall. The painting was completely destroyed. Blotches of deep, blood red and pitch black marred the appearance of the boxer. 

Alexis knew the boxer was Adrian. Adrian told her he painted it after a dream he had during a time when he was ruminating repeatedly on Lucia’s death and on his inability to make amends for his crime against her. He was a man accustomed to activating...doing...and at the time, nothing he did mattered. He dreamt of being a fighter, swinging his fists with everything he had, but his hands were completely useless and ineffective. Just like him.

Alexis could see why Sonny was so drawn to the painting.

But now, ‘boxer Adrian’ was covered in random splotches of paint. Adrian the man walked slowly up to his artistic representation and inspected the damage.

“Who would do this?” Alexis asked Sonny. “Is someone sending you a message?”

Sonny hung his head. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

“Where was your guard for the building?”

“He was...distracted by a girlfriend,” Sonny said with disgust and anger. “Nothing ever happens here. We don’t keep any...important information here, if you know what I mean.” Alexis nodded. She knew exactly what he meant being a former mob lawyer. Sonny continued, “No one’s tried to break in here in years. He got complacent.”

“What about your alarms?”

“Disabled by my guard. He had his girlfriend back in the kitchens when all this was going down.”

“Do you have any video surveillance?”

Sonny nodded, “A figure in black with a duffel bag of supplies came in shortly after the guard opened up the restaurant. We’re guessing they’d been waiting for an opportunity and took it right away. We don’t have cameras in my office for obvious reasons, but we’re guessing they were probably here about an hour and a half.”

“Why the painting, though?” It didn’t make any sense. “Don’t mobsters usually leave horse heads for warnings?”

“Jesus Christ, Alexis.” Sonny rolled his eyes. 

Adrian grabbed a chair from in front of Sonny’s desk. He pulled it up to the painting and stood on it to get a closer look at the red blotches near the top of the painting. His face was only a few inches away from the canvas. Alexis could hear him muttering to himself in Spanish. 

Ever so gently, he touched the paint. His finger moved up to trace the edge of where the graffiti ended and the boxer could be seen again. 

“Mr. Corinthos,” Adrian finally said, “the painting may be salvageable.”

“You can fix it?”

“Perhaps. As long as the vandal doesn’t have any surprises hiding beneath the outer layer here.” Adrian touched the paint again as though willing there be no more surprises.

Sonny sighed in relief, “That’s great news.”

“Would it be too much of an imposition to restore the painting on the premises? I’d hate to have transport it around in this state.”

“This office is at your disposal. Just let my men know what you need.”

Adrian pulled his phone out of his pocket, never taking his eyes off the canvas, and placed a call. 

“Kristin? It’s Adrian…” Even in these circumstances, Alexis admired how he pronounced his name ‘Ah-dree-ahn’, “...I need the help of a few students...No, I’m fine...It’s certainly bizarre. I’ll tell you about it later...Please, call Victor and Agatha from my impressionists class. Send them to purchase the largest television screen with the highest definition that can fit in my office. Then, have them come here prepared for restoration. They need to bring distilled turpentine, cloth, varnish, brushes, everything. Also, please call Clayton in photography. Ask if he’d be willing to shoot some photographs before we get started. He’d need to bring sufficient lighting and high quality cameras. I want the clearest quality pictures we can get...Oh, and one more favor...You think we can borrow a portable x-ray from somewhere?...You’re the best, Kristin. Gracias, jefita...Te amo, tambien.”

Adrian stepped off the chair and looked at Alexis. She saw something in his eyes she’d never seen before...fear. She wondered why if he was able to fix the painting…

She stepped quickly to him wrapping her arms around him. A shuddering sigh escaped his body as his arms embraced her. She kissed him in supportive consolation.

“What time is it?” he asked, grabbing Alexis’s wrist. “I want to study the original as long as possible before we start restoration.” He turned her mother’s watch so he could see the time. “Ten ten. It broke again?”

She nodded, shrugging. Now wasn’t the time to worry about the watch her father gave her mother that always seem to stop at the same time, no matter what specialist tried to fix it for her. Alexis put a hand on Adrian’s cheek. “Help me understand what you saw when you looked at that painting,” she said.

He let out a humorless laugh. “The vandal didn’t seem to want to cause any real damage.”

“What do you mean? There’s paint all over this thing.”

Adrian guided Alexis with an arm around her waist to one of the sides of the painting untouched by the graffiti. “Touch gently,” he said. 

Alexis did as she was told, mirroring Adrian’s fingers on his painting. She felt a hard, glossy finish.

“I’m a little obsessive about varnish,” he said. “I’ve been criticized for overuse throughout my career. It provides a protective layer between the painting and the outside world.”

“So the varnish stopped this paint from touching the painting.”

He nodded. “Indeed.”

“But what if you didn’t varnish perfectly? It’s such a large painting. What if the paint seeped through?”

“It’s sealed perfectly, Alexis. I told you, I’m obsessive. Even so, like I said, the vandal didn’t want to cause damage to the painting.”

“How do you know?”

“The type of paint they used...I think it’s washable children’s paint. That paint would come off a white, silk blouse with a wet napkin. There’s no way it would damage the quality oil blend I used, whether or not my varnish was applied perfectly.”

“Then why do it?” asked Sonny. Alexis had forgotten Sonny was still in the room.

“As Alexis suggested before. The vandal was sending a message.”

“Why go through the hassle?” said Sonny. “Sending me a black rose or a dead bird would be a lot easier.”

“Because the message wasn’t for you, Mr. Corinthos.” Adrian looked to Alexis. “It was for me.”

Alexis shook her head. “What were they trying to tell you?”

He shook his head. “I’m not quite sure.”

“How do you know the person didn’t intend harm? Maybe they just didn’t know about how paint and varnish work.”

Adrian shook his head. “They knew.”

“How do you know?”

Adrian pulled her back to the center of the painting. “See the brush strokes? The blending of color?”

“Not really.”

“This was done by a trained hand. A well trained hand, particularly using such substandard material.”

“Then why just paint a random mess of splotches of color?”

He shrugged. “One thing I’m certain of, bella, is this was anything but random.”

Corinthos interrupted, “So, you really think it will be as good as new?”

Adrian nodded to him. “I don’t see any evidence of damage beneath the outer layer, so I’m fairly certain it should be fine. You and your purchase were not the intended victim.”

Sonny nodded and pat Adrian on the back, “I’ll be sure to protect the piece better in the future. And, Adrian...if you need any help with the person who did this...let me know.”

“No!” said Alexis. “Take back that offer!” 

Sonny threw up his hands. 

Alexis turned to Adrian, “Don’t you dare accept that offer.”

“I had no intention.” He kissed her forehead to calm her down. 

Sonny walked to the door. “I’m going to clear all guests and unnecessary men out of the restaurant. It sounds like you’re going to need space. Take as much time as you need.”

When they were finally alone, Alexis grabbed Adrian’s face in her hands and asked, “Are you sure you’re ok?”

He nodded solemnly.

“Adrian...I saw the look in your eyes. This is about more than fixing this painting. What was the message? Do you know who did this?”

He shrugged, “I don’t know who did this. All I know is they have a master’s skill of an impressionist. For only having an hour and a half to complete that many brush strokes, with that much precision, with that shitty paint…” he shook his head. “I couldn’t even do that, Alexis. This person must’ve planned this for ages. Must’ve practiced countless hours.”

Alexis shook her head, “But why?”

Tears filled his eyes, and Alexis could tell there was something he was holding back, “I don’t know. But a person sends a message to communicate. And communicating requires thoughts being transferred from one person to another, and so far, the vandal’s thoughts have yet to be fully transferred.”

“So, you think they’ll strike again?”

He nodded, “I’m counting on it.”


	4. First Impressions

First Impressions

_______________________________

 

The tidal wave was as menacing as ever, but Alexis couldn’t stop herself from standing before it and letting the adrenaline rush over her. When she stared at Adrian’s largest painting, “Helpless,” she always seemed to see his face staring back at her in the depths of the dark water. Today was no different. 

Adrian truly hit her like a tsunami when they met six months before. He was a force of nature with a single-minded obsession of consuming her. And she was madly in love with him. 

Madly. 

Years of heartache and betrayal taught her men who loved this way were destructive, leaving a literal body count in their wake. But her heart wanted nothing to do with healthy men who loved with any less ferocity. Somehow, Adrian had been both the safe lover she needed and the passionate lover her heart wanted. 

Though she wasn’t at the university to see him, she couldn’t help herself but stop for a moment with the man who captivated her heart. She tore herself away from his painting to walk down the hall to his office. 

Even after six months together, she still got butterflies every time she was going to see him. They fluttered in her stomach, making her feel light and giddy in anticipation of seeing those stunning blue eyes. It was always a pleasure to guess at what his reaction would be to seeing her: radiant joy, heated arousal, warm comfort. It didn’t matter which. She loved it all. 

She knocked gently on his door. 

“Come in!” he said sharply from the other side. She smiled at his severity; he’d never knowingly speak to her that way. She opened the door and peeked in. 

Adrian was standing at the far end of his office staring at an enormous television screen. But he wasn’t watching tv. He gazed unblinkingly at two pictures lighting up the screen. It appeared he plugged his computer into the large screen for use as a monitor. Though she couldn’t see the whole of the pictures because he had zoomed in on them, Alexis could identify the one on the right as his recently defaced painting. She recognized the black and crimson pattern of graffiti. The one on the left was very similar, almost identical, except it had more of a pinkish red than crimson and white instead of black. 

Alexis walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. His tense body jumped only a moment, but hummed a contented sigh when he recognized to whom the arms belonged. He grasped her interlocked hands and squeezed them. 

“Hi,” she said, breathing in his scent as though taking a hit of some intoxicant. 

“Hi,” he rumbled back. “This is a nice surprise.”

“I’m going to take Kristin to see Mikkos, but I came early in case you could spare me a moment.”

He turned in her arms, wrapping his own long limbs around her and tangling a hand in her hair. His lips were on hers before she could glimpse his beautiful, blue eyes. She felt the previous tension drain from his body when her mouth opened seeking his tongue. 

“Mmmmm,” he groaned against her mouth. “I needed this.”

He squeezed her as they kissed, lifting her feet off the ground. He pulled her around and sat on his wingback chair, lifting her onto his lap. How feminine she felt in his arms. She loved everything about him, his strength, his size, his scent, his taste, his face. And that was only the wrapping. All the stuff inside made him all the more enticing. 

She pulled her lips away long enough to say, “I’m a lucky girl.”

He chuckled, “Keep deluding yourself.”

“Happily.”

He buried his face in her neck, breathing her in. His moans of pleasure reassured her; if she was crazy in love, at least she wasn’t alone.

“That’s your painting on the right? The one vandalized?”

“Yes.” He lifted his head to look at the screen. 

She finally caught a good glimpse of his eyes. They were bloodshot, tired, and weary. “And the one on the left? It looks almost the same as the vandalism. Just the color is different.”

He bit his cheek before he said, “It’s called, ‘Dancers in Pink’. The picture on the screen is zoomed in on one of the dancer’s skirts.”

“It’s a famous painting?”

He nodded. “Edgar Degas.”

“Oh. He painted ballerinas, didn’t he? He was an impressionist.”

Adrian’s face was severely serious. He nodded once.

Then it clicked in her mind. His dead wife was a ballet dancer. “You’re thinking about Lucia?”

He didn’t answer. Her question was rhetorical anyway. 

A thought crossed her mind, “Oh my God! That’s the message, isn’t it? Do you think someone knows what happened to her?”

He sighed as a tear dripped down his cheek. “What I did to her, you mean? I don’t know. They must know something. It’s not that hard to figure it out. Julian Jerome found out easily enough.”

Alexis nodded. 

“The question is why someone with the talent of a master like Degas would risk being caught breaking into the office of Sonny Corinthos, would ruin my painting, or would give a shit about me, at all? Especially after all these years.”

She pulled his face to look at hers. She rubbed his brow trying to soften the tension. “An obsessed fan?”

He shrugged. “Why would an impressionist be a fan of mine? It makes no sense.”

That was true. Adrian was known for very realistic, fine-detailed paintings. “I’m using the term ‘fan’ loosely.”

“I’m just worried, Alexis...If they’d go through all this trouble, break laws, anger Sonny...What else are they willing to do?”

“You think they might come after you?”

He shook his head, “It’s not me I’m worried about.” He looked at her with fear in his eyes.

“Me? You think they’d come after me? I don’t see anything in what they’ve done so far indicate they are dangerous in any way.”

“You’re right. But they obviously like their games. And it seems they want to hurt me indirectly. They already used Lucia to do so...It’s not so great a stretch to think they may use you.”

Alexis nodded. “I see.” She cupped his face in her hands. “I’m fine, Adrian. And I’m here for you.”

His eyes warmed. 

“I love you,” she said. 

“I’m a lucky man,” he repeated her words from earlier.

“Keep deluding yourself,” she repeated his.

“Happily.”

She kissed him softly. It was truly amazing how their connecting lips offered comfort and consolation in a way nothing else could. His large hand was in her hair, cupping her head, keeping her against his lips. His other hand was on her thigh, just under her skirt.

"Are you ok?" she asked.

"When you're in my arms, everything's ok."

He kissed her again. She licked into his mouth, loving his taste, loving how he licked back, loving how everything else could disappear when they were together this way. She didn’t want to leave. Alexis was tempted to tell Kristin to go see Mikkos on her own. She just wanted to stay there all day, kissing this man, comforting him, finding comfort in him.

But she knew by his hardening anatomy, and the moan that escaped her own lips at the sensation, that if she stuck around, they’d be doing much more than comforting each other. His hand was already moving up her thigh…

His office door swung open. “Hi, professor. I have the Degas books you requested from the library…Oh God!”

Alexis stood up quickly. A young woman in her early twenties, with unnatural, platinum hair was looking shocked and appalled at finding Alexis and Adrian together. She held a stack of books in her arms. 

“I’m sorr…” Alexis started, but she was interrupted by Adrian.

“Agatha, what makes you think you can enter my office without knocking?!”

Agatha was still staring at Alexis. Alexis was surprised to see a look of venomous hostility flash in the girl's eyes before she shook her head and looked to Adrian. “I’m sorry, professor. My hands were full, and I knew you were expecting me.”

“If my door is closed, you should’ve had the common decency to knock. If you can turn a door knob, you can knock, I don’t care how full your hands are. And if you can’t handle the load, use a cart and your brain next time.”

“Adrian,” said Alexis in an admonishing tone. 

Adrian took a minute to stand up. Alexis noticed his erection had disappeared with the arrival of his student. Adrian walked to the young woman and took the books, then set them down on his desk. 

“Alexis, this is Agatha. She’s a promising art student with an interest in impressionism. I’ve offered her the opportunity to help restore my painting and study the vandalism. She’s the one who recognized the strokes matched the skirt of this painting in particular perfectly.”

“You have a good eye, Agatha.”

“Thank you, Ms. Alexis.”

“Ms. Davis,” corrected Adrian.

Agatha’s jaw set tight. “Ms. Davis,” she repeated.

Alexis thought about telling the girl to use her first name, but something about the cold hostility coming from her had Alexis setting up walls around herself. A part of her wanted to pull Adrian behind those walls with her and protect him from her. 

“Get back to the restaurant,” Adrian snapped at Agatha. “Corinthos must be getting frustrated without use of his office. We need to show we're making progress. I’ll be by later to help.”

“Yes, sir.” Agatha gave Alexis one last look from the corner of her eye before turning on her heel out the door.

“Wow, do you speak to all your students like that?” she asked.

“Only the intrusive ones. But we agreed to allow more help into our lives, and she and Victor are doing a good job with the restoration. She just needs some training on how to behave appropriately.”

Alexis nodded. She wondered if that was Agatha’s first time making herself too comfortable with Adrian. But, he seemed to have it under control.

“When are you meeting your mother?” he asked.

“Soon,” Alexis checked her watch. She sighed with frustration remembering it stopped working yet again. "I told her I was planning on coming by to see you first."

Adrian grabbed her wrist, “Do you want me to take it to an horologist in the city? There has to be a reason it stops at the same time every time you get it fixed.”

A gentle knock sounded at the door. “Of course they actually knock when we’re not in a compromising position,” said Alexis.

“Come in,” said Adrian smiling.

“Hello, you two,” said a sweet voice from the door. 

Adrian dropped the watch to greet Kristin with a kiss on the cheek. 

Alexis felt the discomfort of not knowing what to call the woman in front of her. ‘Mom’ seemed too intimate a word for their relationship, but ‘Kristin’ just didn’t feel right either.

Alexis decided omitting any name from her greeting. “Hello.”

“Were you looking at the watch?” Kristin asked. Alexis had previously offered to give it back to Kristin, but Kristin said she wanted her to have it.

Adrian moved back to Alexis, picking up her wrist. “It keeps stopping at 10:10. Has it always done that?”

Kristin nodded. “I remember it stopping there a few times. Mikkos always got it fixed by a watchmaker in Greece he was particularly fond of. He wouldn’t let me take it anywhere else.”

“How is he?” asked Adrian. “I really need to get out to see him. I wish I could go with you today.”

“He doesn’t even know who I am anymore. That last stroke he had was so bad, I didn't think he was going to make it through.”

“Jefita,” he said, sympathetically. “I’m so sorry.”

Kristin wiped a tear from her eye. “Nothing to be sorry about. I’ll see you tomorrow, darling. We better be on our way, Alexis.” Kristin kissed Adrian's cheek. Not for the first time, Alexis wished for the parent-child ease they shared in her own relationship with her mother.

“Goodbye, love,” Alexis leaned in to kiss Adrian on the cheek. She looked at the television screen behind him. After kissing him, she cupped his face in her hands and said, “We’ll talk more later?”

He nodded. “I’ll see you tonight at your place.”

“I’ll cook you dinner,” she teased.

He coughed, “I already ate yesterday. I should be fine.”

“I love you, Adrian,” she said seriously.

“I love you.”

“Don’t obsess about that painting too much. It’s like you said, you only want to suffer the one time, right? Worrying too much now is useless.”

He nodded, but she could tell by the distracted look in his eye, he’d be right back to obsessing about it as soon as they left.


	5. Memory and Loss

Memory and Loss

_______________________________

 

“Darling, are you comfortable?” Kristin fluffed Mikkos’ pillow. “You’re looking thin. Are you eating? Are they making you the food you like? I brought Lussekatter. Would you like some?”

Mikkos just smacked his dry lips, probably a side effect of one of his dozen medications. Alexis handed Kristin a glass of water that was on the side table. Kristin held the straw to his lips, and he drank deep. His skin was flaky and shiny as though he hadn’t showered in a few days. The scent in the air was stale. 

It wasn’t as though he was being neglected. He was getting excellent care. Alexis knew from Kristin’s conversation with the staff that Mikkos wasn’t allowing them to take care of him they way they wanted. He was resistant to people getting close to him. Paranoid even. Always fearful of a plot against him. 

So he lay there, eyes staring off into space, at a complete disconnect with the world around him. Kristin fussed about him, finding a blanket she made him in their youth laying across a chair and layering on top of him.

“I need to remind the staff you run colder than most people, and they need to keep you warmer than they have been…” Kristin rambled on.

For some reason, the sight was appalling to Alexis. It made her stomach turn. 

Was it the idea of aging that disgusted her so? No...she was never appalled by Lila or Edward Quartermaine, or any other elderly person she knew. 

Perhaps it was the great Mikkos Cassadine diminished in such a way? The all powerful Prince sucking water from a straw while his mistress forced him to eat Swedish pastry. No...diminished manhood had never been an issue either.

Why then? Why was the sight so repulsive?

Then it hit her. This was a man she was supposed to love. A man who gave her half of her DNA. The man who “raised” her. Her father. The source of so many of her complexes…

And she felt nothing for him. 

At least nothing good. She didn’t love him. She didn’t miss the man he once was. She didn’t have a compulsion to make sure he was comfortable or eating enough food or warm enough. She wouldn’t care much if he died right then and there, except how it would affect Kristin.

Mikkos wasn’t a father to her in any way that mattered. Sure, Kristin would argue that if he was a real “dad” to her, Helena would’ve killed Alexis, but that didn’t change Alexis’s experience of him. 

“Stop,” demanded a harsh, weak voice. “Get away. Do you know who I am?” Mikkos had grabbed Kristin by the wrist in a grip that probably looked more violent than it was. The real tragedy of the situation was the heartbroken look in Kristin’s eyes. She just wanted to love her husband, and he didn’t even recognize her.

Kristin didn’t back away from his touch. It seemed as though she welcomed it. It was a masochistic site that made their daughter’s stomach roll.

“Get out of my room! I’m on to your plots with Helena! I know she’s sending that wretched young lady to kill me! Calling herself a nurse! Sniffing around where she doesn’t belong...” 

“Now, darling, perhaps a lullaby would make you feel better…”

“Out!” he said.

Kristin’s breath hitched and her eyes welled with tears. She didn’t look like she’d be able to sing that lullaby even if she wanted with the size of the lump in her throat.

“Mom,” said Alexis. “Let’s step out for minute. I think he might need a moment to reset.”

Kristin’s eyes turned to Alexis, sadness turning to shock. Alexis looked around trying to figure out where Kristin’s surprise was coming from. Then she realized that was one of the first times Alexis had called Kristin ‘mom’ since her identity was revealed.

Alexis blushed and looked down. Funny how thinking of Kristin as her mother, as strange at that was, came easier than thinking of Mikkos as her father, the man with whom she spent much more of her life.

“Um,” Alexis stuttered.

A tear dropped down Kristin’s cheek. She wiped it away quickly with her fingertips. “Darling, I’m going to use the powder room. Why don’t you stay with your father while I’m gone?”

“Of course. Take as long as you need.”

Kristin walked to the door, stopping by Alexis to put a gentle hand on her arm before leaving the room. Alexis sucked in a breath to stop her own tears from welling in her eyes.

Mikkos eyed Kristin with hostile paranoia. He stared suspiciously at the door long after she was gone. Alexis moved awkwardly to a chair nearby. She searched around his cardigan to see if he had any bulges that may be guns. She didn’t want a repeat of last summer.

“Kristin, my love,” said Mikkos reaching for her.

Great, thought Alexis. She leaned closer to her father who was once again mistaking her for a younger version of her mother. Mikkos took her hand in the most loving and gentle manner. Bizarre how men like Mikkos or Jerry Jacks could be so loving under the right circumstances.

“Kristin, Helena has sent her assassin.”

“Mikkos, you’re safe here. No one is trying to harm you.”

He shook his head, “She came by last night, my angel. She teased me. Taunted me. She’s going to kill me. She wants the family treasure, but she doesn’t know where to find it. I hid it well.”

Being around someone delusional could make a person question their own sanity. Alexis wondered what delusions she might live out when she was dementing. She hoped her delusions were far happier, like a private Mediterranean cruise, or being stranded on a desert island with Adrian. She didn’t want to live in anger and fear until she died.

“Mikkos, Valentin has the family fortune. He’s sharing it with the whole family.”

“No, Kristin. Not the fortune. She’s after the treasure. And if she succeeds in killing me, just remember, the key to the treasure is here.” Mikkos took her hand and touched a finger to her mother’s watch. His eyes had taken on that maniacal glow they had in her youth.

“Mikkos, is there a reason it stops at 10:10?”

He chuckled, “As if the king would give his queen anything defective. She’s worth far more than that.”

“Tell me why it stops there.”

He shook his head. “There are eyes and ears everywhere, my love. Remember that.”

Alexis grabbed her wrist and the watch clasped around it wondering if this was all another of his delusions, or if this was one of his rare moments of clarity. It didn’t seem like Mikkos to give a defective gift to his favorite mistress. And it always stopped at 10:10, no matter how many times it was fixed. 

But a treasure? Why would Alexis care about getting some silly treasure? She had enough money, and so did her girls.

When Kristin returned, Alexis moved away, not caring for the proximity to her father. Kristin had composed herself and was finally able to sing to Mikkos. His memory of her song was far better than his memory of her face. He softened when she released her beautiful soprano voice. Whether or not he remembered the voice belonged to the woman he loved, Alexis didn’t know, all she knew was he was looking at her mother as though staring into the eyes of an angel. 

And even more strange, was her mother was staring back in the same way. What on earth was in Kristin that she could love a monster in such a way?

 

________________________________________

 

SEX. All he could think of was sex. 

Only a minute previous, Adrian was in the shower contemplating proposing marriage to the woman he loved, but now, he couldn’t even articulate a coherent sentence, much less one that would communicate his undying love.

Now, he just needed to FUCK. 

He had spent the afternoon with turpentine and varnish, and it took forty-five minutes in the shower to remove the scents from his skin. When he came downstairs from his shower at Alexis’s house, wrapping a towel around his waist, he saw she’d finally arrived home from her visit with her parents. A part of him knew he should ask her about their visit, but that part was drowned out by the intense physical need stoked at the sight in front of him. 

Alexis was standing by her desk midway through undressing herself. She’d paused a moment with her shirt off to inspect that cursed watch. She wore delicate, high heels, setting her legs in an elegant line. Her black skirt curved from her knees, over her thighs and hips, to her waist. Her lacy, black bra held her tits up high, pushing her plump curves together. 

Adrian marveled at the poise of her posture, even when she was looking down at her wrist. She was royalty by blood, by essence, and by divine right, and her body seemed to exude the elegance and grace that flowed in her veins. A soft and regal crown of chestnut hair cascaded over her shoulders and several inches down her back.

She dropped her hand, gave up on her watch, and went back to disrobing. With her back to him, her hands reached behind her to pull down the zipper of her skirt. It fell in a pool of fabric at her feet.

Dios mio, he thought. Those panties were new. There was no way in hell they would ever survive sexual encounter with him. Black. Lace-lined edges. Sheer fabric hiding nothing underneath. 

She was the embodiment of a fucking MUSE.

His dick was throbbing from the intense arousal. The cotton towel around his waist, once soft, was a scratchy irritant on the head of his hypersensitive cock. The fabric wasn’t the warm, silk flesh of the inside her cheeks as she sucked on him, nor the hot, wet vise grip of her cunt squeezing orgasm after orgasm out of him that he was craving. He pulled off the towel and let it fall to the floor.

Moments like this made him feel like a primitive man. Gone was his education and intellectualism. Gone his refinement. Gone were any thoughts beyond pinning THAT woman down and fucking her as hard and relentless as his dick could stand before exploding into her.

He knew she heard him by the way her body stilled. The tension and flush of her body suggested she was already aroused. How could she not be, standing in her lingerie and high heels, waiting to meet a man who made it his life’s purpose to worship her mind, body, and soul?

He only needed to decide how he was going to fuck her. His first thought was usually for her pleasure. The fire in her eyes and her euphoric cries of release were even sexier than her lingerie. And a pleasured woman was far more eager to please her lover than one left wanting. But her delicate curves in that pretty little package had him solely focused on how to get his dick buried deep, somewhere, anywhere in her body, filling her with all the cum he had.

He stepped closer, and he could feel the air vibrating between them. Her back arched showing off her ass in those almost nonexistent panties. She was teasing him.

When he was close and the unique scent of his woman hit his nose and touched his lust-addled brain, his body, already heated by her fire, he warmed further in contented recognition of its mate. He closed the last bit of distance between the two of them coming up behind her. 

His cock brushed over the sheer fabric of her panties barely covering her ass. Her shoulder, so warm and soft to the touch, shivered when he ran his fingertips across her skin. His hands trailed over her curves and settled on her hips.

“Belleza...what are you wearing?” he asked, his voice low accusatory.

She leaned her body back against him. By her squirming and her quiet moan, he knew she was getting those seductive little panties saturated with her arousal. He couldn’t wait to touch her and see just how wet she was.

“Just a little something I picked up.” Her voice was low and throaty, the vibrations going straight to his loin.

He put a hand flat on her abdomen and pulled her against him, trying to rub out some of the ache of his straining cock. His lip moved to her ear and he rumbled, “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

“Tell me,” she sighed between hitched breaths.

He unsnapped her bra with a flick of his fingers. He reached around and held her tits in his hands, loving their soft weight and smooth texture. When he squeezed, the soft flesh rose up between his fingers, more pliant than the softest clay. The visual of her pale, November skin against his naturally darker hands suggested a porcelain sculpture might capture the moment. But as he pinched her nipples, he thanked God the original was far less breakable. 

He pulled her around and bent her over the large wooden desk. He let his chest weigh heavy on her back, pinning her down. He could feel her lungs working almost as fast as her heartbeat. He fisted a handful of hair and pulled her head up from the desk a few inches as he spoke low in her ear.

“I’m a man accustomed to losing his mind, Alexis. When I see you like this, I question reality.”

“And how to you figure out what’s real?”

“Who said I have? This might just be some grandiose delusion that the gods bestowed me your favor.”

“Then maybe you’re not the only one who’s lost their mind.” 

Overwhelming gratitude flooded him, that this woman, THIS WOMAN, loved him, wanted him, needed him, half as much as he loved, wanted, and needed her. And right now, he needed her body. He needed to be in her. He needed to fuck her.

“You think you know madness?” he teased. 

He stood up to look down on her. Her ass was poised and angled up in the air, her heels lifting her higher than normal. It would be even easier to fuck her that way. Her hands gripped the edge of the desk on the other side, while his hands ran up and down her backside. He caressed the delicate fabric that was pretending to cover her ass. He could see all of her ass through the sheer fabric. His finger glided over her puckered hole, causing her to shiver. His fingers moved down to her sweet pussy grazing over her soaked panties. The fabric was small, delicate, and wet, and it was in his way. He gathered the fabric in both his hands, and in a quick aggressive yank, tore them apart.

Alexis squealed at either the bite of the fabric ripping or anticipation of what was to come. Or maybe it was both. He threw the panties aside and focused on her bare ass. She was naked except for her heels. He had full access to her pussy with her ass perched so high in the air. He ran his fingers through her slick folds, loving how her hips jerked.

“You’re so fucking wet for me.” His fingers dipped inside, loving the hot, wet texture. Loving her whimpering. Loving her her ass pushing against his hand.

“Adrian!” she cried out as fingered her from behind. At the sound of his name on her lips, his dick demanded to fuck. He pulled his fingers out and grabbed hold of her hips. Adrian lined himself up and rubbed the head of his cock over her cunt. Alexis jerked back trying to get his head inside. Her neediness had him ramming his cock as hard as his hips would allow into her pussy. She was hot, and soaked, and squeezing him so tight. It felt as though pleasure was buried somewhere deep inside him, flowing like a water vein, and her pussy was sucking it out, bringing it to the surface, demanding he share it with her. 

He squeezed her little waist and pulled out slow, reluctant to leave her body, but knowing he’d soon be pushing back in. She tried to push back against him, but damn it he wanted to control the rhythm. 

Maybe that was how he knew this was reality, that he wasn’t completely lost to his madness. He was able to control his body, the pace of the fuck, and the fulfillment of her pleasure. 

He yanked her hips back as he thrust his forward. Several more times he repeated the rhythm, slow out, feeling her pussy suck on his cock, then pounding back in. Faster and faster he went, making sure he pulled far enough out so his cock would rub against her soft and sensitive g-spot when he pushed back in.

“Harder! I want it harder,” she demanded, as he fucked her from behind. His grip on her hips was so tight, he worried he’d leave bruises, but he couldn’t let go, and she certainly didn’t want him to. He growled as he pounded into her, hammering away at her pussy.

If he would’ve been told at twenty years old, at the emergence of his professional success, with women throwing themselves at his feet, that all the best fucks of his life wouldn’t come until decades later from one special woman, there would be no way he’d believe it. And Alexis was just that, the best of his fucking life. As high-strung and Type A as she could be in her work and the rest of her life, when her clothes came off, she was uninhibited, confident, demanding, and trusting. She knew a man’s body. She knew HIS body. 

And, dammit, she could MOVE her body!

Sex was a dance, a performance, a work of art, and she was both his partner and his muse.

And that was just the physical part of it…

He felt the first signs of her quivering cunt about to climax, and he pulled out wanting to delay gratification. He flipped her over onto her back, staring at her naked body. Her skin was hot and flush, and her legs were spread waiting for him. Her pussy was dripping and swollen, and her hips were reaching for him. Her hands found her tits, squeezing, massaging, rolling her nipples. His cock jumped as he watched her. Her eyes were glossy, and he could tell her consciousness was in the same transcendent space of pleasure as his own.

Adrian bent over her as he pushed in her pussy once more. Her hands left her tits to wrap around his neck and tangle in his hair. He cradled her head and dropped his lips to take her mouth with his. He licked deep, eating up her moans as he pulled back his cock and shoved it back in.

“You feel so damn good, woman. Why is it always this fucking good with you?”

He squeezed her body in his arms as he fucked her harder, wanting her close. Wanting every piece of her touching him. He felt her heels digging into his backside when she wrapped her legs around him. 

Her demands of “more...faster...harder” spurned him. Her hips were moving in rhythm underneath him, following his lead, giving perfect friction. 

“Adrian!” she yelled when her trembling pussy started hinting again at orgasm. He sped his thrusts, wanting to come with her, loving how her cunt wanted to suck all the cum out of him. Faster and faster he pounded. Her legs tensed around his hips, and her pussy contracted. She bit down on his shoulder and pulled his short hair. “Adrian!”

Her rhythmic contractions choked his dick, setting him off into his own climax. His thrusts faltered as he kept his dick in her pussy as deep as it would go, spurting cum, lost in the ecstasy of orgasm. 

He kissed her again, as the pleasure morphed from euphoric need to blissful affection. They kissed and kissed while they tried to catch their breath and relax their muscles. He stood up with his arms around her, hugging her tight so she was sitting on the edge of the desk with his cock still in her. He fisted her hair as he kissed her again wanting more of her somehow. 

“I’m going to get some more of those panties,” said Alexis.

He chuckled, but his cock twitched inside her thinking about her ass in those panties. He was so overcome by his lust didn’t even get to see the front before he destroyed them. “Hopefully, I’ll have a little more self-restraint next time.”

“Hopefully, not.”

He curled his lip, “You like making me lose it, don’t you?”

She nodded and kissed him again. The feeling of her tongue dancing in his mouth was getting him ready to go again. She squirmed against him feeling his hardening cock, but stepped down from the desk. “Oh my, I better go shower before we do that again. It’s been a long day, and I’m filthy.” 

She gathered up her clothes, bending naked in those high heels. It did nothing to soften his arousal. When she started walking up the stairs, her ass shaking back and forth on the steps, he followed up with a gleam in his eye.

“Lo siento, hermosa. That shower is going to have to wait.” He followed her upstairs in a predatory prowl.

 

_________________________________________________

 

“I need a shower,” she said again. “I smell like sex and a nursing facility.”

He chuckled sniffing her neck as they cuddled in bed, “Then my future is looking bright if this is how a nursing home smells.”

“Let’s not do the nursing home thing. When we’re senile, let’s just go to Baja and make love overlooking waterfalls. Unless our wheelchairs can’t make the hike, then we’ll have regular bed sex in your beautiful house.”

“Our house,” he said. He thought of the engagement ring he had stashed in his overnight bag. “It’ll be your house, too.”

Her dimple popped up letting him know she was suppressing a smile. 

“Would you like that?” he asked in a serious tone. “To make what’s mine yours?”

“And vice versa?” She smiled outright. “Of course.”

Maybe he should do it now? Just get down on his knees and ask...

“But it’s scary to think of getting old like that. Like Mikkos.” She sagged in his arms, seeming a bit defeated. 

“How was he today?” Adrian really needed to go see him. Mike (or Mikkos he corrected himself) was a good friend to him. He got him out of jail. Helped him get his shit together all those years ago. Adrian had been avoiding him because he hated the paranoia and agitation Mikkos always seemed to carry around these days. And he hated what it did to Kristin and Alexis. But one day, Adrian was going to run out of days to visit. To say goodbye.

“He was particularly strange today,” said Alexis. Adrian held her face in his hands. “He confused me for my mother again. It’s getting worse. He thinks the nurses are trying to kill him. I’m afraid he’s going to hurt one of them.”

“Like he did to the nurse at his house?”

Alexis flinched at the memory. “Exactly.”

“But he’s weak now, and he doesn’t have any weapons to harm anyone. Honestly, Alexis, my concern is more for how he’s being treated. Nursing home stories scare me.” And it wasn’t in his culture to put family in a nursing home. He knew Mikkos needed to be there, that he was too much for Kristin, Alexis, and Adrian to handle, but it didn’t stop the guilt.

Alexis nodded and rested her head on his chest. “I’m sure they’re caring for him well. The facility caters to a wealthy and demanding population with high standards.” She sniffled as though she might be trying to hold back tears.

“Hey? Did something else happen?” He pulled her face back up to look at him.

“Yes. When my mother left the room for a moment, he started talking about some family treasure, and the watch being the key. It was strange.”

“Ramblings of a delusional old man?”

She nodded. “Maybe. One thing is for certain...he loves my mother dearly. At least the memory of her.”

Adrian kissed her forehead, “Yes he did. I wish you could’ve seen them twenty years ago. He was enamored. His whole life was built around keeping her safe and happy.” Adrian laughed at a memory, “There were a few poor souls who bothered Kristin at some of the more raucous parties we attended…” Images of Mikkos taking them ‘out back’ to handle them fluttered through his mind. Adrian was no longer laughing knowing what he knew now about his friend. “I wonder if the bastards survived the night.”

Adrian’s phone started ringing from his bag next to the bed. Adrian reached down and grabbed the bag. He fished out his phone, checked the caller ID, and answered. “Kristin?”

A quivering voice answered. “Sweetheart, is Alexis with you? Can you put her on speakerphone? Her phone is going to voicemail.”

Adrian turned on the speaker. 

“Mom?” said Alexis. Adrian smiled at the new label, stroking her hair. “Is everything ok?”

“No, darling. It’s not. It’s your father.”

Alexis looked up to Adrian, “Another stroke? Is he in the hospital again?”

A sob sounded on the phone.

“Jefita?” said Adrian, his fight or flight response triggered by Kristin’s distress. He needed to get to her.

“I’m sorry,” said Kristin between sniffs and sobs.

“What happened?”

“He’s gone. He’d dead.”

Alexis’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Was it another stroke?”

Another sob. “No, darling. He was suffocated.”


	6. Intruders

Intruders 

_______________________________

 

Alexis was ready to go home. She hated being at Wyndemere. And it didn’t feel like Thanksgiving with her family; it felt like a second funeral. For a man who didn’t show much love in his life, Mikkos sure had a lot of people miserable over his death. 

Alexis had no tears for the death of her father. No, her tears were for the loss of the man he never was. A man she, Kristina, Valentin, and Stefan deserved. Maybe even Stavros. With a decent father, her eldest brother might not have been so psychopathic. A decent mother already seemed to be improving Valentin.

She looked to Valentin who was helping Charlotte and Danny put a puzzle together at the table. Helena would be rolling over in her grave if she knew the bastards’ families were spending the Thanksgiving holiday at Wyndemere, engaging in wholesome activities, while their mother, the mistress, was sorting through old pictures of Mikkos in the study. 

Alexis wished the holiday could feel like a real family holiday, not a Gothic day of gratitude right after the murder of the family’s patriarch. It didn’t help that they were spending so much of their time in the room where Chloe Morgan was murdered by her brother. Nor did it help that when she looked outside she could see the courtyard where Katherine fell to her death. 

Alexis shook her head to clear away the ghosts and focus on the living. Though she may not have had tears for her father’s death, she did have sympathy for her mother’s grief. Since Mikkos’ was killed, Kristin was dropping weight and looking frail. She tried to put on a face of strength and acceptance, but her efforts were fruitless. 

Alexis was ancy. She checked her watch. “Ten ten,” she laughed. She checked her phone for the actual time.

The only reason she was still at Wyndemere was her assistant called her an hour before and informed her some contracts arrived via courier that needed to be signed by Valentin and sent to Malaysia by the end of the week. Alexis would have to wait until Natalie brought the contracts so she could review them before Valentin signed anything.

She looked around the room for Adrian. His arms were a source of comfort, and she needed that comfort in the place where so many ghosts wandered the halls. But Adrian was nowhere to be found. Her three daughters and TJ were talking by the fire, apparently oblivious to the macabre environment surrounding them. Valentin was protecting Charlotte and Danny’s puzzle from Scout’s interference. Why were none of them affected? Maybe because they didn’t have the history with Wyndemere she had.

She checked her watch again. Maybe Adrian was in the bathroom.

After another fifteen minutes of his absence, she went looking for him hoping he didn’t get lost in the catacombs. She warned him to stay away from the walls, never knowing which was false and might send him to Hades via a pit of ravenous alligators or a three-headed dog. 

Guessing Adrian went to see Kristin, Alexis walked to the study down the hall. As she neared the door, she heard loud, pained sobs. She rushed to the entrance, worried Wyndemere might be getting another ghost that evening. 

Inside the study, Adrian was sitting at the edge of the desk holding a crying Kristin in his arms. He had silent tears running down his own cheeks; the whites of his eyes were completely red, giving his blue irises a near purple hue. He kissed Kristin’s temple and muttered into her ear.

“Jefita. Lo siento. No es justo.”

“He told us, Adrian. He told us she was going to kill him.”

“You couldn’t know it was the truth. He’d been rambling like that since his first stroke.”

“And maybe they were after him since then, or even long before, and putting him in that facility finally gave them the chance to kill him.”

“We made the best decision we could, Bea. Mikkos killed people this summer. He killed your nurse. He killed that doctor in the restaurant. Who next? Alexis? You?”

Kristin sniffed. “You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just so unfair, we finally have our family together, we finally have everything we could’ve dreamed of, so much to be thankful for, and someone took him away before we could enjoy it.”

“I’m so sorry.” Adrian hugged her tight and rubbed her back.

Alexis felt like an intruder on a private family moment. It was like a single child comforting his mother over the loss of his father. She was about to step away when Adrian spotted her. He waved her over with a tilt of his head.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” said Alexis hesitantly. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Kristin startled and straightened, pulling away from Adrian's arms as though she didn’t need the comfort. “Oh, dear. I’m fine. It’s just the first holiday without Mikkos. It stings a little.”

Alexis sighed. She’d said she was sorry so many times, she thought Kristin must be tired of hearing it. Alexis just reached out a hand and Kristin grasped it. Alexis could see how much it meant to her mother to be offered any affection, at all. And it was such a simple gesture.

“I just wish the police had some sort of lead on who killed him,” said Kristin.

“Detective Chase said they’re looking into how the security cameras got disabled,” said Alexis. She moved to Adrian’s side, and he wrapped an arm around her. Alexis wiped a tear dripping down his cheek. She was always surprised to see how much her father meant to Adrian.

“I don’t like the idea of you living by yourself, jefita,” said Adrian.

“I’m fine. Valentin helped me arrange for guards at the house, and they’re already more company than I can stand. You know I like my space.”

Alexis could see by the set in his jaw that Adrian didn’t think very much of Valentin being in charge of Kristin’s security. Right after Mikkos’s death, Adrian tried fruitlessly to have Kristin stay with him until they found the killer, but Kristin wouldn’t have it. Alexis was relieved seeing as how she and Adrian spent nearly every night together. She didn’t want to live with a mother she was only just getting to know.

“Alexis!” called Valentin from the hall. “Ah, there you are.” Her brother stood at the door. “Your assistant is here with the paperwork for the holdings in Malaysia.”

Adrian sighed in frustration. “You’re working on Thanksgiving?” 

Alexis shrugged. “It’s only Thanksgiving in America. The rest of the world isn’t waiting for us. I just need to review a contract before Valentin signs it.”

Natalie walked into the room with wide eyes and blushing cheeks. The poor girl was so shy. Bright, but shy. Her shoulders seemed to be collapsing in on themselves with how much she was trying to shrink away from the stares of Valentin, Adrian, Alexis, and Kristin. 

Alexis had a fondness for Natalie precisely for this reason. Helena made Alexis into a quiet little mouse, skittish, hiding in shadows, fearing attention. She didn’t know why Natalie was the same way. She didn’t know what demons lurked in her past. But she reminded Alexis of herself, even down to her dark hair and eyes. But Alexis wanted to help the girl gain confidence. If Natalie was ever going to get into law school, she needed to learn how to hold her own, much the way Alexis learned in college.

Behind Natalie stepped in another young woman about the same age with a shock of platinum hair.

“What the hell are you doing here?” demanded Adrian.

“Hello, professor,” said Agatha. The sight of that girl made the hair on Alexis’s neck stand up. Was WAS she doing there?

“This is your new assistant, Alexis?” asked Kristin. She seemed incredulous.

“Natalie is my assistant. I don’t know why Agatha is here.”

“I’m here with Natalie. She doesn’t have a car, so I volunteered to drive her,” said Agatha.

“You two know each other?” Alexis looked from her assistant to Adrian’s student. She felt a knot settle in her gut. Why didn’t she like the thought of their acquaintance?

“We’re roommates,” said Agatha, grinning despite the visible displeasure of Adrian and Alexis. Adrian stepped to the side to have a word with Agatha. 

Natalie pulled out the paperwork and handed it to Alexis. She whispered, “I’m sorry, Ms. Davis. I didn’t realize it would be a problem bringing a friend. I should’ve asked first, but she did drive me here, and I was nervous taking the launch by myself in the dark.”

“It’s fine, Natalie. It’s quite reasonable not to be out by yourself after dark.”

Natalie bit her lip and lowered her voice even more. “Mr. Camilo doesn’t seem too happy she’s here.”

“You leave that to Mr. Camilo to deal with. Just make sure you keep all the work we’re doing confidential, ok?”

“Of course, Ms. Davis. I’m always careful.”

Alexis smiled and gave her a pat on the arm. “I know you are, sweetheart. Thank you for coming all the way out here on Thanksgiving.”

“Really, it was nothing. This isn’t a holiday my family ever celebrates anyway.”

Adrian was speaking in a low voice to Agatha several feet away, but Alexis could hear all they were saying. “...boundaries, Agatha. You must’ve known I would be here spending the holiday with Ms. Davis, and you and I have already had too many discussions about you inserting yourself in my personal space. You’re a talented artist, but I will not continue to mentor you if you don’t learn to respect my boundaries.”

If Alexis put Natalie in her place like that, shame and embarrassment would be written all over the girl’s face, but Agatha looked as though she wanted to murder someone, as though SHE was the one slighted in some way. 

“Of course, professor,” she spat. It seemed to take a Herculean effort to say the words. “I’ll be more mindful of your space. Like I told you before, boundaries are a new thing for me.”

“Please apologize to Ms. Davis for your intrusion.”

Agatha’s mouth dropped open incredulously. When she saw Adrian was serious, she pulled herself together. She stepped closer to Alexis. “I apologize for intruding on your family’s Thanksgiving.”

Alexis didn’t want to tell her it was ‘ok,’ because for some reason, it was fine for Natalie to bring a friend, just not that particular friend. “Apology accepted,” was the best she could come up with.

Alexis attempted to focus on reading over the documents, but watched Agatha out of the corner of her eye. Agatha moved around the room with her hands on her hips. Such a display of confidence in a room where she was unwanted. She seemed particularly interested in the artifacts in the room, old vases, lamps, chests, furniture, paintings, and such. Must’ve been the artist in her so interested in such things. Alexis had no fondness for them aside from being reminders of Stefan.

“How is school going, Natalie?” asked Adrian, obviously forcing polite conversation. 

“Very well, sir. Ms. Davis has given me an edge over my peers with law school applications.”

“Alexis says you’re doing a fine job assisting her.”

Alexis looked up to see Natalie staring at Adrian’s feet blushing profusely. It was good for Natalie to talk to a famous artist and have a positive experience. That should help her confidence.

She went back to reading. 

“The artwork here is spectacular,” said Agatha. “My God, how much do you think that Greek vase is worth?”

“Agatha…” whimpered Natalie in embarrassment. 

Agatha just shrugged as though she didn’t see anything wrong with asking.

Adrian snapped, “That vase is a nineteenth century reproduction. It wasn’t even made in Greece, much less Ancient Greece. I’d expect you to know that at this stage of your education, Agatha.”

“Really?” said Valentin, clearly shocked that his piece was a fraud. 

Adrian nodded. “There’s a bowl in the alcove in the hall depicting Achilles in battle that’s authentic.”

Agatha nearly ran outside before she stopped and asked Valentin, “May I?”

“Indeed,” said Valentin.

Alexis tried to keep as focused as she could on the paperwork. With Agatha gone, that seemed a much easier feat. She got through the whole document and called Valentin over to sign his name on each of the copies.

“I heard about your painting,” said Natalie quietly to Adrian. “Agatha said you were able to restore it?”

“Yes, it seems the vandal meant no harm to the piece.”

“Do you have any idea why they did what they did?”

“Not really, no.”

“Everything seems to be in order, Natalie,” said Alexis. “Have this copy overnighted to Malaysia, this one goes to Cassadine Industries, and this one to my office.”

“Yes, Ms. Davis.”

Alexis escorted her to the foyer. As they were walking down the hall, they ran in to Agatha. She was staring hungrily at the bowl. 

“We’re leaving,” Natalie told her. 

Agatha just nodded, not taking her eyes off the bowl as she started walking to the foyer.

“Have a Happy Thanksgiving,” said Alexis. 

Natalie replied almost inaudibly, “You, too, Ms. Davis.”

Agatha gave a sneering goodbye to Alexis, and the heavy doors closed behind them. Now she could finally go home.

Adrian and Valentin were back in the hall next to the Achilles bowl. She overheard them talking…

“Your father told her he hid the treasure well,” said Adrian. “You don’t think it’s real, do you?”

“It’s possible it existed. My family has been known to plunder on occasion. But who knows if that was why he was killed?”

“Do you think whoever did this would go after the rest of the family?”

“Not likely, since none of us know anything about the treasure, or if it’s even real. Mikkos had a lot of enemies, and someone may have found out who he was after he killed those people last summer. It was probably revenge for a past wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Luke Spencer in a wig and scrubs. I’ll look into it more thoroughly. I promise you, when I find out who did this, the police won’t get a chance to bring them to justice.”

Adrian flinched at Valentin’s words, “I’m not certain that’s a comfort.”

Alexis was pleased Adrian wasn’t rooted in the Cassadine vengeance and bloodlust. She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him. “Let’s go home,” she said. “I’m a worn out.”

Adrian caressed her arms that squeezed his torso. “Of course. I’ll get Kristin. We can drop her off on the way home.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Kristin, coming down the hall from the study. “I’d like to stay and look at more of these old pictures. Valentin will ensure I get home safely. Won’t you, dear?”

“Of course. You can also stay in one of our guestrooms,” said Valentin. “We have everything you could possibly need.”

“Thank you, darling.”

“Are you sure?” asked Adrian. Alexis could hear the worry in his voice. “We can…”

“Alexis is exhausted, Adrian. Take my daughter home,” she shut him down.

“Kristin…”

Kristin interrupted him with a kiss on the cheek. “Go home. I have things I need to do here. Valentin, could you help me get that other box from top shelf in the storage room?” 

“Of course,” said Valentin.

Kristin kissed Alexis on the cheek before she turned and went back to the study with Valentin in her wake. Alexis could feel Adrian’s tension in her arms.

“Let’s go, love,” Alexis whispered in his ear. “I don’t like to spend much time in this house. It makes me anxious. And it looks like it’s having the same effect on you.”

“I don’t like the idea of her being here without us.”

“She’s here all the time without us. Her son and granddaughter live here.”

“But she doesn’t come at night. Don’t you think it’s strange she wants to stay?”

“Yes, I think it’s strange anyone would want to stay here. But she probably wants to feel close to Mikkos. And the only reason she probably didn’t come out here at night was because she had to take care of Mikkos. She’s free to do as she pleases now.”

“This place...Alexis...the darkness...it’s not who your father was the last few decades of his life. His home with Kristin was who he was...light...hopeful. That she wants to be here doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Light and hopeful might have been the Mikkos you knew, but dark and terrifying was the father I remember. That was the man she first fell in love with. She’s going to grieve in her own way.”

Adrian looked to the study as though debating if he should go after Kristin. Alexis sighed and leaned against the wall. She knew Kristin’s recent sobs were fresh in his mind, causing most of this worry, but she just wanted to say goodbye to her girls and go home. She closed her eyes and considered leaving without him. They hadn’t spent a night apart in months, and the only thought that made her more sick than sleeping without him was staying at Wyndemere any longer.

She felt him step into the space in front of her. When she opened her eyes, she looked up to find his sky blues staring down at her. “You’re not ok,” he said, cupping her face. 

It took him long enough to figure that out. She just shrugged.

“Lo siento, belleza.” His kissed her forehead. “I’ve been distracted.”

She said nothing.

“It won’t happen again.” He bent down and kissed her chastely on the lips. “Let’s say goodbye to the girls and get you out of here.”

____________________________________

 

The launch was dark and freezing, but Alexis was tucked snugly into Adrian’s arms. As the boat sped away from Wyndemere, she noticed herself relaxing more and more. However, the same wasn’t true for Adrian. Though more attentive to her than in the mausoleum, she could still feel his tension as they neared the docks.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

He was biting the inside of his cheek. Alexis took that as a “no.” 

“Do you want to go back to Kristin? I can make it home fine by myself,” she said.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to be without you.”

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked, not being able to stop herself from taking responsibility for making him feel better. 

“Come with me to the studio?”

“You want me to pose for you?”

He nodded. “If you’re feeling up to it. The muted moonlight is just the lighting I’m looking for.”

She kissed him in acquiescence. She wasn’t above using her naked body to help him relieve tension. It was a much preferred method to having her mother come stay with them.

When they arrived at his studio, the canvas he’d been working on since their return from Cabo was still set up close to the bed, left there since the last time she posed for him. 

“Do you need me to wet my hair again?” she asked.

He chuckled, “Not this evening.” He ran a hand down her spine. “But I need these clothes off. I’ll be work on the details of your lower half.” 

A pleasant shiver ran down her spine. As he readied the supplies, she peeled off her clothes and lay on the bed. Funny how all her inhibitions to pose for him, to have him paint her, had gone out the window. Six months ago, she would’ve strung him up by his toenails for a simple sketch of her. Now she was putting herself on display for a painting that was five feet tall and seven feet wide.

She lay on the bed waiting for him. She knew how he wanted her positioned, but she feigned ignorance. There was nothing quite like the reverence he treated her with when he was painting her.

Adrian opened the curtains to let in the soft moonlight. He lit up the part of the canvas he was working on with small lights that didn’t reach Alexis. When everything was just how needed it, he approached the bed. 

“¿Estás listo, hermosa?”

She nodded and squirmed, excited for next part. He needed to get her skin nice and flush. Before he sat down, he removed his clothes. 

“Why do you paint naked?” she asked with a grin. “I’m not complaining. Just curious.”

“Well, I don’t always paint naked. I don’t think the university would be too pleased with my verga on display as I give students demonstrations.”

“Your girlfriend wouldn’t be too pleased either.”

He laughed and sat next to her. “Exactly. I only paint like this in private. And it’s mostly because I don’t want to ruin my clothes.”

“Then lucky me,” she said eyeing his cock. She watched it harden as he looked her body up and down. 

His chest did that sexy rumble as he finally put his hands on her. His warm, soft touch rubbing her curves, her abdomen, her hips. Her pussy was starting to quiver with anticipation. His hands moved over her breasts, and she arched her back into his grip. He squeezed them in greedy admiration. 

“Did I tell you I’m going to sculpt this?” he said, kneading the soft tissue. “Porcelain.”

She hardly cared in that moment. She just urged him on by putting a hand on his cock and squeezing his hard, thick length. He grunted and pinched her nipples.

“You’re starting to like posing for me, aren’t you?” he rolled his hips and bent down, hovering his lips just above hers.

“It has its perks,” she said as she stroked his dick.

He took her mouth, pushing his tongue inside. How delicious his mouth tasted. She licked his intruding tongue, loving how he used it to caress her. His hand moved down her belly and found her pussy. She lifted her hips into his hand as he rubbed over her soft, smooth skin, massaging the swelling flesh. 

She needed this after an evening at Wyndemere. His tongue licked between the lips of her mouth as his fingers slipped between the lips of her pussy. 

“You’re hot for me, bella.” His finger trailed from her clit to her entrance and back up again, bringing moisture with it. “You’re wet and ready, aren’t you?” He tickled her clit with the tips of his fingers. 

He was teasing her. It felt damn good, but she wanted it firm and hard. She lifted her hips again trying to get friction. 

“I want to fuck this pussy so hard, but I won’t be able to pull out, and I can’t have cum spilling out of your cunt for the painting. Just your sweet arousal.” He dipped his finger inside her, rubbing her flesh, in and out. He added another finger, and another. His mouth dropped down and found her clit while he fingered her pussy. He licked and sucked and fingered her as her hips moved rhythmically against his face. Her hands were on his head holding him in place as she was grinding her clit against his mouth. He sucked her clit up and circled it with his tongue. He picked up the speed of his thrust with is hand. 

She pulled his short hair, and clamped down on his fingers when her pleasure hit its climax. She rode his face and his hand dragging out the sensations addling her brain. 

He lifted his head, and his eyes raked over her body. “Perfect,” he growled. 

Adrian stood and stretched his cock left and right, as though trying to alleviate some of the ache he obviously must be feeling. He looked down at Alexis and shrugged, seeming to accept there would be no help for his erection when she looked the way she did.

Her brain was still coming down from it’s high. Adrian moved her limbs where he needed them, and propped her up on her side. Alexis watched his throbbing cock and wished he didn’t have so much self-control. 

“Are you pouting, mujer? Don’t worry, I’m not done with you yet.”

The promise made her heart flutter. 

Adrian grabbed his phone and started playing music over the bluetooth speakers that ran throughout the studio. It was a dramatic choice, inspiring an anticipatory fear in the listener. It sounded as though it might’ve been a film score.

The way the canvas was set up, she could see Adrian, but she couldn’t see what he was painting. That was probably for the best. Alexis just held still and watched the master work. He moved at an astonishing pace that never ceased to amaze Alexis. She marveled at his physical mastery of gross and fine motor skills working in perfect conjunction with his conceptual development of an idea, his acute observation of the natural environment, and coordination all of these abilities into an artistic masterpiece.

She wanted to tell him she loved him. She wanted to tell him how impressed she was with him. She wanted to tell him how she hoped to spend the rest of her life watching him. 

But she didn’t want to disturb him. So she kept quiet and watched. She watched his studious eyes. She watched his hardened muscles moving over his body, looking like a fine marble statue. She watched his quick brush strokes and mixing paint.

She watched the man she loved and forgot the ghosts that haunted her family’s home.

She watched until she fell asleep.


	7. Insinuation

Insinuation 

_______________________________

 

“Wow! It looks brand new,” said Sonny.

Adrian nodded staring at The Unarmed Boxer. It always made him think of Hemingway. He’d had the dream the night he read “Fifty Grand.” Lucia was on his mind, as she always was before meeting Alexis, and the combination of the story of an aging boxer betting against his best self along with Adrian’s feelings of utter ineffectiveness in fixing the harm he caused, lead to the composition of paint slathered on that canvas.

“Did you ever find out who did the vandalism?”

“No. We haven’t.”

“Did you figure out the message they were trying to send?”

Adrian shook his head. He had no intention of sharing anything about Lucia with anyone other than Alexis and Kristin.

“How much do I owe you for the restoration?”

“Considering it was my fault it was vandalized in the first place, I couldn’t accept payment.”

“Let me at least cover the cost of supplies and make a contribution to the department.” 

Adrian nodded. “I can accept that.”

“I’ll have my people get in touch with you this week.” Sonny patted Adrian on the back before walking out the office door.

Adrian stayed staring at the painting. His memory projected the vandalism onto the canvas. 

Who would do such a thing? Who was capable of doing such a thing? He knew few people who had that kind of talent.

“Hi professor.”

Adrian tore his gaze away from the painting to find Agatha walking in the room. She was quieter than normal. Less aggressive and arrogant in her stance. 

“Shall I help pack up the last of the supplies?”

He nodded. 

She grabbed a plastic tub and started filling it with leftover cloth, varnish, turpentine, and brushes. Adrian went back to staring at the painting.

“I’m sorry, professor.” Agatha was looking at him with something close to shame. It was an emotion he’d never seen on her before.

“For what?”

“For what happened on Thanksgiving. You must think of me some sort of stalker.”

He didn’t think her a stalker. More like an overeager fan, with a poor understanding of her place in the university. Hell, the girl probably had a messed up idea of her place in any relationship by the sound of her upbringing. However, he didn’t correct her inaccurate assumption. Giving this girl an inch would result in her taking far more than a mile.

“To be honest,” she said, “I was excited at the prospect of seeing you outside of school. I’ve really enjoyed working with you here. I realize, now, that’s an impulse I need to stifle.”

He nodded. “I’ve been clear with you since the first day we met, Agatha.” He recalled their inappropriate first encounter. Her hand touching him in a way unsuited for a professor-student relationship.

She laughed, embarrassed. “Yes, you have. You don’t mince your words.”

He was harsh with her that day. He probably should’ve reported her inappropriate touch, but she did have some talent, and she genuinely seemed not to understand how to behave in front of a man with power over her. He decided to document the interaction in an email to her, along with his parameters for their continued work together, including maintaining professional physical distance from each other, and limiting their conversations to those relevant to classes, professional development, and her personal art projects.

He learned long ago, that teaching students how to paint and sculpt was probably the smallest part of their education. He spent more time teaching them the business of the art world, and how to be professionals, grown-ups. 

“You can’t blame me, though. You’re famous. You’re talented. You’re attractive. I’d be crazy not to try.”

“No, Agatha. It’s not crazy to respect other people’s wishes rather than impose yourself on them.”

“And here I thought women were being empowered to behave more like men.”

“I think the world would be a better place if men behaved more like women, not the other way around.”

“You’re a feminist, professor?”

He didn’t answer. She was reeling him in to more conversation. He had no desire to converse with her.

She finished filling the plastic tub. “I’ll bring this back to your office.”

“That’s not necessary. Take it to the store room.”

“Ok.” She was about to walk out of the room, but stopped herself. “I really am sorry for making you uncomfortable.”

He nodded in acceptance of her apology. “I promise I’ll be more of what you want me to be moving forward.”

“It’s not what I want you to be that matters, Agatha. Behaving appropriately should be what you want for yourself. If you’re apologizing as a way to manipulate me or insinuate yourself further into my life, you won’t like the result. And neither will I.”

“I’m apologizing because I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable again. That’s all.”

“Then don’t do anything to make me uncomfortable again.”

“I’ll try not to. I might mess up here and there.”

“You’re out of second changes. So, I’d try to keep the mess-ups to a minimum.”

She smiled, a completely inappropriate emotion for the conversation. “Yes, sir.”

As she walked away, he wondered why he felt like he needed a shower after that conversation.


	8. Keep Your Enemies Closer

Keep Your Enemies Closer

_______________________________

 

Kristin reclined her first class seat back and put on her headphones to listen to a recent performance of Tosca from the Palais Garnier. She was saddened she didn’t get to see a performance during her brief layover in Paris on her way home from Greece, but she had much to do before the end of the semester, and couldn’t afford to take time off work. She needed to get rest on this flight home, or she would be useless the week before finals.

Her trip was a serious inconvenience in her life, but a necessary one. 

Kristin thought back to waking up at Wyndemere the morning after Thanksgiving, and coming up with a plan on how to protect her family. She had to go to Greece. Her plane left New York on Friday afternoon and arrived in Athens less than ten hours later. She completed her task then flew home with only a brief layover in Paris.

Before Kristin left for Greece, she had to stop by to visit Liliana. That child was up to something, and her visit to Wyndemere during Thanksgiving with that fake name gave her away. 

Kristin recalled the conversation with Liliana:

*****

“What on Earth are you doing, child?” said Kristin striding into the little house she rented for the girl. Liliana stood and met Kristin head on.

Kristin couldn’t help but look behind Liliana at the painting on the wall of Adrian falling and tendrils of flame reaching out to save him from the dark abyss below. 

Liliana had allowed minimal charity from Kristin since she turned eighteen, shunning Kristin’s attempts to continue to support her financially as Kristin had her entire life. The only financial support Liliana accepted anymore was hardly enough to cover the measly rent of the little house just outside the city.

So, when Liliana asked Kristin to purchase for her Adrian’s latest painting, how could Kristin refuse? Kristin did so anonymously, of course. Adrian couldn’t know to whom the painting now belonged.

Kristin shifted her attention back to Liliana. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“You’re not my mother, Kristin. Don’t treat me like a child.”

“What are you doing, Lily? What are you planning? My God, tell me! I wouldn't have even known you were up to something if you hadn't shown up to Thanksgiving the way you did."

Liliana just rolled her eyes. 

Kristin continued, "I know you hate Adrian for what he did to you and your mother, but he’s still your father.”

Liliana shook her head. “Being a sperm donor doesn’t make him my father!”

“But now you’ve drawn Alexis into your plan! Alexis is my only living daughter!”

“I’m not going after Alexis.”

“Hurting Adrian hurts Alexis!”

“She should know the kind of man she’s tying herself to. She should know the whole truth.”

Kristin put her hands on Liliana’s arms. “Alexis knows everything, sweetheart. She loves him anyway.”

Liliana pulled away from Kristin. “Then she deserves any pain she gets choosing to be with that kind of man.”

Kristin felt her throat swell up. There was no way this grudge would end well for anyone. Kristin had spent all of Liliana’s life trying to convince her Adrian was a good man, a loving man. That he’d make an excellent father. But Lucia’s poisonous interference wouldn’t allow Liliana to consider forgiving Adrian.

Kristin noticed familiar images on pieces of paper spread out on the coffee table. One image in particular stood out most. 

Kristin lost her breath. She picked up a picture of a ballerina. Of Lucia before the accident. “This tutu…” Kristen recognized the blood red color. “The vandalism of your father’s painting…”

Liliana snatched the picture out of Kristin’s hand and held it to her chest.

“It was you?” said Kristin.

Liliana laughed. “Who else would paint a Degas over one of the great Adrian Camilo’s paintings?” Liliana said the last five words with mocking exaggeration.

“Why don’t you just talk to him? Give up this farce! Why are you playing these games?”

“He needs to know fear. He needs to know pain.”

“He loves you. He's suffered enough at your loss.”

“He nearly killed me!”

“Not on purpose!”

“He was drunk! Are you saying drunk drivers aren’t accountable for their actions?”

“Your father has a mental illness that was wildly out of control at the time!”

Liliana shook her head. “No. No. Mom said he was depressed and drinking. Not manic. He chose to drink! He wanted to kill himself, and he nearly killed his wife and daughter who got in his way!”

“That’s not how Bipolar Disorder works, Lily. There are manic episodes and depressed episodes, but there are also mixed episodes, and depressive episodes with psychotic features. Your father was not in his right mind. Trust me. I know him better than anyone!”

“You didn’t know him better than my mother.”

“Your mother is not the same as she once was. You can’t trust her memory. You can’t trust her anger. It’s not...it’s not…”

“It’s not what?”

“It’s not reliable.”

“Well my anger IS reliable. And don't forget HE is the reason she's no longer the same.”

*****

Kristin wiped a tear from her cheek. She didn’t know what to do. And she was so tired of all the damn lies!

And Liliana was only a small worry on her plate at the moment. 

Kristin’s thoughts shifted to her trip to Greece. To her arrival at the family property deep in the Rhodope Mountain Range. 

*****

The stone house wasn’t large, but it was only there to mark the entrance of the catacombs below.

She remembered her horror at finding out about some of Mikkos’s more unsavory activities after she took over running the family estate when Mikkos had his first stroke. This secret was one of the worst. But fear of what might happen to her family if she didn’t continue with Mikkos’s plans had her throwing her scruples out the window.

The musky stone floor was surprisingly warm for the winter. She wondered if Mikkos had done something to the ancient house and the catacombs below to make sure the prisoner wouldn’t get too cold and freeze to death. One of Mikkos’s men...she corrected herself...one of HER men led her down a long stretch of an underground tunnel to get to the prisoner’s cell.

Kristin hated coming to this man for help, but she had no one else to turn to. No one else she knew had enough nefarious connections to help her find out who killed her beloved Mikkos and protect the rest of her family. Perhaps Valentin may have, but she didn’t want him back in that life, not when he was doing so well with Charlotte and Nina. 

But she knew this man had worked with Helena on more than one of her evil projects over the years. If anyone could get to the truth, it would be him.

She just needed to be sure she could trust him.

There was no way to know for certain.

“Here he is, ma’am,” said the guard.

Kristin looked through the bars in the center of a heavy wooden door. A man was lying on the floor in a weak and pitiful state.

Did he have the physical capacity to help her? The guard opened the cell at her request. 

“Hello?” she said. She stepped forward and nudged the man with her foot to gently rouse him. “Hello?”

He grumbled as he rolled over. His blonde hair looked nearly black with filth. When he spoke, his elegant accent was a surprise coming from such a heap of dirty, stinky clothes and bones. “Ahh, Persephone. Does this mean the great Mikkos Cassadine has finally gone to Tartarus?”

“Mr. Jacks...I have a proposition for you.”

*****

Kristin shivered and tried to clear her head. She turned up the volume of Tosca, as though that might drive out the memory of the devil's bargain she just made. Thoughts of releasing Jerry Jacks back into the world wasn’t going to help her sleep. She reached into her purse to pull out an Ambien. 

“My God I hope I’ve done the right thing,” she whispered to herself before tossing back the pill.


	9. Helpless

Helpless

_______________________________

 

Restless agitation stirred in Adrian’s chest and radiated out to all his limbs. The giant wave before him threatened to crash down and wipe him out. Facing his fears was becoming ever necessary, his passivity only leading to helplessness.

The tsunami. His Unconscious taking control and driving him to complete and utter self-destruction. 

He’d never sell that painting. 

The university was the only place large enough to display the painting where he would have access to it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. At ten o’clock on a Sunday night he was glad he turned down the multitude of offers for Helpless so he could visit his old, reoccurring dream. 

Every time he looked into the massive wave, something different formed in the dark water.

Mikkos’s murder.

Alexis in danger.

Kristin acting so strange.

The damn impressionist.

Lucia. 

He should put his anxious energy to good use and go to the studio to work on his current painting rather than staring at an old one, but the subject matter of his more recent dream gave him additional anxiety. 

Well, he shouldn’t say the subject matter GAVE him anxiety. His Unconscious created the dream while he was in a deep sleep during his trip to Cabo; therefore, the anxiety was already there, deep down, and the dream was only the vessel that brought it to conscious awareness.

He thought of the beautiful naked body on that canvas, and his gut wretched at what he needed to do next to finish painting the dream. The truth was, he only wanted to work on that damn painting when Alexis was around because her physical presence gave him the reassurance he needed when he got lost in the world of his art, and the morbid nature the painting was about to take on was not a good place to get lost in when he felt himself so close to spinning out.

The dark hall he stood in was illuminated only by the lights shining in through the windows from the campus grounds. 

His phone rang in his pocket. He glanced at the picture that lit up his screen and exhaled in a sigh of relief. “Alexis?”

“Hey you,” she said. God, her voice was more soothing than the strongest of booze, without the chaser of self-destruction.

“Are you finished helping Molly study for the LSAT?”

“I am. Sorry it got so late. Did you make headway with that grant?” 

“It’s finished. I just need a pair of fresh eyes to read it over. Are you still up for it?”

“Of course.”

“Should I meet you at your place?”

“Actually, I came to surprise you at your office, but the door to your building is locked. I brought chocolate.”

“You’re here?” Adrian strode passed Helpless without another glance, anxiety tucked back away to make room for excitement and affection. He could see her silhouette backlit by the light of a lamppost by the door.

Those curves. What on earth was she wearing?

He opened the door. 

“Belleza,” he said, dragging out the word (Bay-yes-sa) because never did it have more meaning than in that moment. She wore a cobalt blue skirt that hugged her hips and squeezed her thighs. The black top only accentuated the hourglass shape of her tiny waist. 

And she was staring at him with that hungry look in her eyes. The look that said she craved him nearly as much as he craved her. 

“You’re stunning,” he said. He noticed his voice seemed to drop when she aroused him so suddenly.

She released her bottom lip from her teeth to kiss him. He couldn’t help but lick into her mouth, always craving more closeness. “Mmmm,” he moaned, recognizing a flavor foreign to her natural taste. “You started on the chocolate without me.”

“Kristin stopped by Molly’s. She brought French truffles.”

“Did she steal away to France in the last forty-eight hours?” he joked.

“Unlikely. But they taste so authentic. Probably a local French chocolatier.”

Adrian pulled her in by her little waist and licked in her mouth again. He tongued her deep, long after the taste of chocolate was gone. 

When his craving for her had him kissing down her neck, she said, “Let’s go to your office and look over that grant before we get carried away in a public space.”

He growled, reluctant to take his mouth off her. She led him down the hall by his hand to his office. She was a couple steps in front on him, so he watched her hips sway in that delectable skirt with every step she took. He didn’t notice when they passed Helpless. He didn’t even notice when they made it to his office. All he noticed was the swaying stopped. 

His hands ran over the swell of her ass and squeezed.

“Adrian...the keys?”

He fished them out of his pocket and handed them to her. They tinkled like little bells as she unlocked the door, all the while, he continued his appreciative exploration of her backside. When the door opened, she didn’t turn on the ceiling lights. Instead she walked to the corner and switched on a softer lamp. Adrian closed and locked his office door before double-checking the to make sure the blinds were completely drawn. He didn’t want any spectators or unwanted student assistants barging in.

Alexis walked to his desk and woke up his computer. She sat on his large, leather, swivel chair. “What’s your password?”

“Natasha1010,” he said.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, but he could see she was pleased by the upturn on her mouth. He had locked his computer with the grant application open on the screen, so it was there for Alexis to peruse as soon as soon as the computer unlocked. She pulled her glasses out of her purse and set them on the bridge of her nose. She started that mumble-reading thing she always did when she was trying to concentrate with distractions around her.

“I’m going to change some of the language here in your statement of the problem,” she said, talking to the screen.

Adrian retrieved her discarded her purse and reached inside. He pulled out a small box of truffles. He heard her clicking away at the keyboard as he retrieved a truffle and sat on the edge of the desk next to where she was working. He took a small bite of the corner of the dense, rich chocolate, and let it melt in his mouth.

Strange how the presence of Alexis seemed to ease his soul. He wasn’t certain it was such a good thing to be so dependent on another, but there was nothing he could or would do about it otherwise, and there was no catastrophe in the world that could keep him away from her, so he shrugged away any concern.

Her lips moved silently as she changed his phrasing in the body of the application. He lifted what was left of the truffle to her mouth. She smirked and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She nipped the chocolate from the side of her mouth, and went back to typing.

A bit of chocolate lingered on her lips, far too enticing to pass up. He bent forward and sucked up her lip into his mouth, licking the chocolate away. She whimpered a delightful little sound before she pulled away.

“Adrian, let me just get through this, and I’m yours. You have to submit this by midnight.”

“Apologies,” he said as he popped the rest of the truffle into his mouth. He watched her typing away, seemingly rewriting the application in her own language. Her mastery of language was a beautiful thing, particularly impressive to a man whom English was not his first language.

He pulled another truffle from the box. This time, he set it on his tongue and let it melt. He tried not to grin as he bent down on a knee and swiveled her chair facing him.

“Adrian…” she warned trying to keep her face turned toward the computer screen. But the warning held no steel because she stopped halfway through his name to bite her lip when he spread her legs.

His hands dipped under her sexy, blue skirt, and pulled it up above her thighs. She gave up looking at the screen. He took the melting truffle from his tongue ran it across the sensitive skin of her inner leg.

“I’m not sure this is what my mother had in mind when she bought us the truffles,” said Alexis squirming in her seat. 

“But I’m certain the Frenchman did when he made them,” he responded. He bent down and licked the line of chocolate off her leg with slow, sensual strokes of his tongue. He couldn’t tell which texture was smoother, which was richer, the chocolate or her skin. He got his answer when he reached apex of her thigh. “Better than the fucking chocolate.”

He placed the truffle on his tongue to melt it once again. He pulled her panties down and tossed them aside. Then, he took the truffle from his mouth and rubbed it over the lips of her soft, warm pussy. There was a tiny piece left between his fingers, so he brought it to her mouth. She opened for him to place it on her tongue, but when he pulled his hand away, she sucked up his fingers and used her tongue to lick the residual chocolate. His cock jumped in his pants wanting to take the place of his fingers.

But he had other plans at the moment.

When she released his fingers, he brought them to his own mouth to taste her flavor. She moaned and squirmed some more. He pulled her by the hips to the edge of her seat and put his mouth on her chocolate-covered cunt.

He intended on taking his time. Savoring the chocolate. Savoring the cunt. But it was just too fucking good. He devoured the delectable dessert spread before him, licking, sucking, nipping, consuming. Her greedy little hips rolled against his mouth. The truffles had nothing on her delicious little clit.

The moment he felt her coming, he pulled her out of the chair and pushed her up against the wall, hiking her legs up around his hips. She was still coming when he dropped his pants and shoved his cock into her pussy. Her thighs squeezed him as she rode out the rest of her orgasm. When she started breathing steadier, he pulled back his hips and thrust in.

“Oh God!” she yelled. 

Hell yes. He loved what he could do to her. He loved making this elegant, refined woman lose her mind. He set a relentless pace; his need lose himself in her came from a deeper place than just needing pleasure. She took away the fear, the pain, the uncertainty. She made him feel worthwhile and whole. 

She made him feel like a man. 

She made him feel alive.

And he was trying with every kiss, every thrust, every caress, to let her know. 

“Te amo,” he said as he kissed down her neck. “Te amo,” as he sped his hips. “Te amo!” as she set off again with the pressure he put on her clit pinning her to the wall. She milked his cock making him lose it, spurting cum deep inside her. He did everything he could to keep her upright as he lost control.

“Te amo,” he said in an exhale, kissing her lips as she dropped her feet to the floor. He guided her back with him to his chair, sitting her on his lap, her skirt still hitched above her hips. Her thighs were so damn soft. He stroked them with his fingertips as he buried his face in her neck and caught his breath. 

“It’s a beautiful thing how a lover is given the most intimate parts of their partner,” said Adrian as he grabbed handfuls of her inner thigh. “Nothing off limits. No sights, no sounds, no flavors, no piece of the body or soul left unclaimed.”

Alexis shivered in his arms.

“Are you cold,” he asked. 

“No,” she looked in his eyes. “I was just thinking of the trust needed for a person give themselves over so fully. I’ve only ever trusted a couple people in my life so much.”

“Yet you trust me,” he said.

She nodded. “A scary thing to do. Ric and Julian hurt me immensely. I was blindsided by both of them.”

“Yet you still take the risk with me. Why?”

She rested her forehead against his. “You’re not riddled with the insecurities of Ric. And you’re not caught up in a life of violence like Julian.”

“But I have my own demons. I have a past, Alexis.”

“So do I.”

“But my past is coming back to haunt me. Does that not scare you?”

She looked down at the broken watch around her wrist. “No. Because you’ve given me something Ric and Julian couldn’t.”

“What’s that?”

“Truth. You’ve given me the truth.”

He hugged her close. She been lied to her whole life, starting with her own mother. “I promise I’ll always give you the truth, amor. No matter the cost.”

 

__________________________________________________

 

It was just before midnight when Alexis pressed the submit button on the grant application. Adrian was grateful for her diligence, because he preferred to just submit the rough draft and take her home to ravish her with more of that chocolate.

Adrian locked the door behind them as they stepped into the hall to go home. His hand rubbed down her back as they walked, bypassing his favorite spot on the small of her back to grab another handful of her ass covered in his favorite new piece of clothing.

“What do I give you?” Alexis asked.

“What do you mean?” said Adrian.

“You give me truth, and that allows me to give so much of myself to you. What do I give you that allows you to do the same?”

He smiled. “Do you want a list? It might be long. Could I use some of those long papers you use for drawing up contracts?”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I, mujer.”

“Ok, then tell me something on the list. What’s the first thing you’d write?”

He kissed her gently on the temple and said, “Acceptance.”

“Acceptance, huh? You’d think a world famous artist would have his fill of acceptance.”

He shook his head. “The world doesn’t know me, amor. It knows how I put colors on a canvas, but it doesn’t know ME.”

This time, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Oh my God!” she said, looking past Adrian to the wall.

Dread filled his gut before he followed her gaze, knowing what he’d find.

A face was suspended in the middle of his great wave. The style the same impressionism as the last vandalism, but the pale, white color depicting a ghost of face. There was no mistaking the features staring down at him, lost in his tsunami, ready to crash…

“Lucia,” he said.


	10. Foreboding

Foreboding 

_______________________________

 

“So, you’ll come over?” asked Valentin. He sounded agitated over the phone.

“Adrian’s painting right now,” said Alexis. “I’m never sure how long he’ll be working.”

“Come without him.”

Alexis sighed. She didn’t want to leave Adrian alone at the moment, and she didn’t want to explain to Valentin the reason why. “I can’t. I’m helping him with a few things while he paints. I’ll call you later if we can make it.”

“This is important, Alexis.”

“Not to me. Not right now. I have other things I’m more concerned about.”

She could hear her brother’s frustration in his voice, “Fine. I’ll be here at Wyndemere for the rest of the day.”

Alexis turned to look at Adrian. He was wearing a pair of old, worn jeans and no shirt. His muscles were tense and rippling as he worked. She was always in awe of how fast he moved when he was working. Of how he could paint with such precision at that rate of speed. He told her once he was even faster in his twenties and thirties. Age, caution, and attention to detail slowed him down. She smiled to herself. If this was him “slowing down,” she wondered at the frantic pace he must have worked twenty or thirty years before.

She moved closer to Adrian and the canvas observing the painting coming together. 

She shivered at the image.

It was difficult for her to look at the image for too long, and not just because it was a painting of her naked body. It was what Adrian was painting over her naked body. She didn’t claim to be an artist, and she certainly didn’t claim to be a psychologist who interpreted dreams, but the image was disturbing. 

And perhaps even more disturbing was Adrian’s Unconscious conjured the image, and his consciousness had to sit with it over the last few weeks, stewing it over, ruminating in it, planning a painting of it, sitting with the details, executing the painting.

Maybe that’s why his mood was agitated lately. 

Or maybe it was Kristin behaving so strangely, spending more time at Wyndemere, or isolating and not answering his calls for days at a time. 

Or maybe it was Mikkos’s death.

Or maybe it was Lucia’s face in the Helpless painting.

He didn’t let his students work on the restoration of that painting. He did all the work himself. He didn’t want them seeing Lucia’s face. They’d ask questions. They’d know things they shouldn’t. 

Alexis saw that Adrian had his photographer friend take pictures of the image, and Adrian took to staring at them on his phone when he didn’t think Alexis was paying attention. She also knew he stared at the image on that giant television screen in his office whenever he went to work.

“I’m fine, Alexis,” he said. His face was about three inches from the canvas. He was using a thin paintbrush to make a falling droplet of blood. “If you need to see your brother, you can go.”

“I have no interest in seeing my brother. He wants to talk about that ridiculous hidden treasure.”

“That treasure might be the reason your father was murdered. You’re not the slightest bit interested?”

“We don’t know that. And if Mikkos was murdered over a treasure, why on earth would I want any part of it?”

Adrian continued to paint with a grim look on his face.

“Do you want me to leave?” she asked.

“Of course not. But you’re worrying about me, and you shouldn’t.”

She wanted to reach out and touch him, but she was always afraid she’d startle him and mess him up. “I shouldn’t? You’ve lost a father, your dead wife’s face was painted into your worst nightmare, you don’t know who put it there, and you’re painting my naked body with blood raining on me from the sky. You don’t think I have a right to be concerned?”

“The blood’s not coming from the sky…”

“Oh? Where’s it coming from?” 

Adrian never discussed much of his current projects. He kept it all in his head until it was finished. “It’s coming from me.” He turned around to face her. Red and black paint was mixed with sweat all over his arms and chest. It looked like he was bleeding.

“You? You’re dripping blood on me?”

He pointed to the top of the painting, were an unfinished form, which she had been mistaking for a strange cloud, was the source of the blood raining down on her. She guessed he’d yet to really start on that part of the painting.

“What does it mean?” she asked.

A sharp frown marred his face. “I’m still figuring it out.”

“It’s more morbid than I anticipated. Erotic, but morbid.”

He looked at it and cringed. He massaged his forehead with the heel of his hand. He nodded.

“And I shouldn’t be worried?” she said.

He looked to her with worry in his own eyes. “Am I scaring you?”

She smiled, “I’m a Cassadine. A little blood doesn’t scare me.” She stepped closer to the painting. “Why are you bleeding?”

He exhaled deeply and put his paintbrush down before moving to stand behind Alexis with his hands on her shoulders. “My throat was slit.”

She froze. “By whom?”

“Me.”

Her stomach sank. “You dreamed you slit your own throat while we were in Cabo?”

She could feel his head nodding above hers. 

She let out a laugh. “Wow, you really must have been worked up over me being on my phone too damn much.”

After a moment he barked out a laugh from behind her. She was being purposefully absurd to lighten the moment.

He kissed the top of her head and started walking to the bathroom. “I’ll take you to see your brother after I shower. I need a break from this damn thing anyway.”

Alexis stayed looking at the painting. She heard him start the shower as she stepped closer to the canvas. Small droplets of blood were splashing down on her like rain while she was obviously aroused, and perhaps even orgasming. The sexual nature of him expelling fluids onto her in the throes of passion didn’t escape her. 

Neither did the method of his self-destruction. A slit throat. 

Alexis thought back to her memory of the woman she thought was Kristin having her throat slit by Helena. And she thought back to having the same dagger held to her throat by both Helena and Julian. Those thoughts haunted her dreams; now they seemed to be haunting Adrian’s.

Alexis didn’t know how long she stood staring at the painting. She snapped out of her trance and her own rumination of tragic memories and walked to the bathroom. She sat up on the counter and watched Adrian wash himself through the steam-covered glass shower door. 

She rolled her eyes at how his hands grazed over his body with such indifference. He was a specimen of a man, and when she ran her own fingers over his firm skin and through the scattering of hair on his chest, she was anything but indifferent. She felt her sex clench and knew she must be getting her panties wet. 

He didn’t notice her watching him until he stepped out of the shower. He smiled with glittering blue eyes and pearly white teeth when he recognized the look on her face. “Ms. Davis. I didn’t know you to be a voyeur.”

She blushed. He dried himself off before hanging the towel on a rack. She marveled at his confidence, his comfort in his own skin. Her eyebrows raised as she noticed his anatomy harden upon her inspection. He did that sexy rumbling chuckle from deep within his chest. His right hand grabbed his cock and stroked it from root to tip while she watched.

“Mr. Camilo, I didn’t know you to be an exhibitionist.”

He laughed out loud. “I display twenty-foot paintings in galleries all over the world, and you didn’t think me an exibitionist?”

She laughed at herself for missing the obvious. But her laughter died on her lips when she saw the precum dripping out of his cock. She couldn’t help but lick her lips.

“You’re not a voyeur at heart, are you?” he said, smirking. “You’re more of a hands on kind of woman.”

She nodded as she salivated for the man in front of her. She slid off the counter and onto her knees. He stepped toward her still stroking his cock. With his other hand, he grazed her cheek with the back of his fingers with a loving look in his eyes, before he thread those fingers into her hair. 

Adrian brought his cock to her lips, and she moved forward to take it in her mouth. Her head was stopped by his hand tangled in her hair. She looked up at him pouting. He was smirking at her eagerness. 

Then, she felt the soft head of his cock run over her lips, coating them with precum. Her tongue darted out to taste him, and he grunted as she licked up what was left of the fluid. He was under her control then, as she sucked him up into her mouth. 

As she sucked his cock down her throat, her eyes watched the haunted expression on his face had completely disappeared. He was lost in the pleasure she gave him. It saddened her that his life was so dark at the moment, but she felt no little triumph that her lips and her body could take that away.

She noticed he didn’t take over fucking her mouth like he was typically wont to do. He stood there with his hands in her hair and let her take him. When she felt his balls tightening up, and his erection growing harder, she knew he was about to cum. 

He growled a loud, animalistic sound as a hot spurt of cum shot down her throat. She swallowed it down and sucked hard for more. More and more cum filled her mouth, and she started to realize she couldn’t keep up with it. He pulled out his cock and jacked off the rest of his orgasm as she swallowed down all she could. The rest of his cum landed on her neck and her chest.

“Ay, mujer. Tu boca...chingao.” He held her face in his hand as he inspected his handiwork. For some reason, the image of the painting in the other room flashed across her mind. There was a smugness to his smirk as his eyes raked over her chest shining with his cum. But when his eyes met hers, his smile softened into that sweet reverent gaze she was so used to.

“Come, hermosa,” he pulled her to her feet. “Let’s get you cleaned up before we go.”

He lead her back in to the shower where he returned to the favor before washing the cum off her face and chest.


	11. Treasure Hunt

Treasure Hunt

_______________________________

 

Alexis was sated and relaxed as she and Adrian boarded the launch to Wyndemere. She was going to try her best not to allow her family toxicity to ruin it. To her surprise, it was Adrian who seemed to be impacted by nearing Spoon Island more so than Alexis. She leaned into the crook of his arm with her head resting on his shoulder. His muscles tensed around her the closer they got to Wyndemere, and his attentions lessened as he gazed warily at the family home.

“Hey,” she said turning to face him directly. “You ok?”

He gave her a weak smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Of course.” 

She ran her hands over his firm arms and neck. “You weren’t this tense an hour ago.”

A glimmer sparkled from his eyes as she watched him replay their shower before leaving the studio. “An hour ago I was naked with the sexiest woman in the world. You can’t fault me for not showing the same amount of pleasure going to see Valentin.”

He bent down and placed a quick kiss on her lips. She knew he was trying to reassure her, but she took over the kiss and pulled him in. She licked into his mouth to reassure him instead. She kissed him to let him know that as long as they had each other, everything else would work out. 

He was breathless when she pulled back. “Don’t let my family’s darkness take over you, Adrian. They have a habit of snuffing out the light.”

“Your family IS my family, Alexis. And they...they’re not of this darkness. Mikkos, Kristin...they were my light for a long time. Now it’s you. Your wicked stepmother and her evil offspring were the darkness.”

Alexis just smiled at him. How mistaken Adrian and Kristin were about Mikkos. Alexis remembered his coldness. She remembered the madness in his eyes. “Wherever it comes from, don’t let it get to you. Don’t let it suck you in.” 

Adrian silently nodded before staring back out to Wyndemere with a glazed over look in his eyes, much like one of his marble statues. He stayed that way for the rest of the ride.

When the front door opened to Wyndemere, Alexis noticed a tumbler glass in Valentin’s hand with ice and clear liquid. She knew exactly what he was drinking. It was unusual for him to drink when she and Adrian were visiting.

“Hello, sister. Hello, Adrian.”

Alexis skipped the pleasantries. “Why are we here? Why couldn’t you just stop by the studio?”

Valentin ignored the question and led them to the sitting room where old boxes were scattered haphazardly. Adrian moved a box off the couch so he and Alexis could sit next to each other. 

“How is your painting?” Valentin asked Adrian. “Were you able to restore it with no damage?”

“The vandal has gone to great lengths to ensure there is no damage.”

“Why are you being targeted?”

“I’m not entirely sure.”

Alexis didn’t want to spend time with Valentin thinking about Lucia and her face floating in the waves of Helpless. “Why are we here, Valentin?”

Valentin drank back his vodka before answering. “Kristin went to Europe the day after Thanksgiving. She was back by Sunday.”

“What?” demanded Adrian. 

“She left for Greece on Friday, per the guard I had following her, and she arrived home from Paris on Sunday.”

“Ridiculous,” said Alexis. “I saw her that Sunday. There is no way she could’ve traveled that much and not be completely wiped out.”

“Alexis, Kristin travels luxury first class. It wouldn’t be a hardship on her body. And she brought you that French chocolate,” said Adrian.

Alexis flushed at the memory. 

“Why would she go without telling us?” Adrian asked Valentin. 

“I don’t know for certain,” said Valentin. “She wasn’t honest when I asked her. She said something about missing Mikkos and feeling close to him in Europe.”

“How do you know she wasn’t telling the truth?” 

Valentin gave him a condescending smirk. Alexis knew her brother was an astute observer of such things, likely trained by the WSB or DVX. 

“Why did you wait this long to say something?” said Alexis. “It’s been weeks.”

Valentin shrugged as though her question was of little importance. “Adrian’s painting was vandalized, and I didn’t want to put more stress on you. I also was hoping to find out more of what she was doing.”

“And?” said Adrian. 

“Nothing. My guard lost her in Greece and we haven’t found out the reason she went.”

“You made us come out here to tell us nothing?” said Alexis bemused.

“No,” said Valentin. “I asked you to come out here to look at what I’ve found about the treasure Mikkos may have been hiding.”

“Valentin, I told you I don’t want anything to do with a treasure, whether or not it even exists. Why would you suck me into this?”

Valentin’s eyes dropped to her watch. “Can I look at that?”

“Why?”

“Because I found a receipt from a collaboration of a Russian jeweler, Dimitri Petrov, and a Greek watchmaker, Alesandro Anastas, and I think it was for the watch our father gave our mother.”

“So?”

Valentin knelt in front of Alexis and took her wrist in his hand. He gently released the clasp on the watch and took it from her wrist.

“You have a habit of giving me family heirlooms and trying to take them away,” said Alexis, remembering the key he gave her and asked her to return shortly after.

Valentin stood to look at the watch in the light. “Apparently, the diamonds from this watch came from Imperial Russia. Mikkos brought the diamonds to Anastas and Petrov with a request for this watch.”

“We knew our family had ties to the Romanovs,” said Alexis. 

“Direct ties,” said Valentin. “But not necessarily OUR family, Alexis. Our stepmother’s family were direct descendants.”

“Helena Romanov Cassadine,” said Alexis, growing nauseous. “Are you saying my mother’s watch is made from Helena’s ancestral jewels?” 

“I believe so,” said Valentin, still mesmerized by the watch.

“Have you tried to track down the jeweler?” asked Adrian.

Valentin nodded. “I tried…”

“And?”

“Dmitri Petrov went missing shortly after the date marked on this receipt. His body was found abandoned on an mountainside of the Rhodope Mountain Range.”

“So, dear father had a watch fashioned from his wife’s family jewels for his mistress, then killed the jeweler to cover his tracks? Charming.” Alexis was in no hurry to get that watch back.

“That seems to be the case.”

“And the watchmaker?” asked Adrian. 

“Anastas and his family have had a thriving watchmaking business in Greek ever since. Anastas died of liver problems about eight years ago. His son took over the business,” said Valentin.

“Who cares?” said Alexis. “Why do we care?”

“Because someone must know about the Romanov treasure, Alexis,” said Adrian. “They killed your father for it.”

“And he did much worse!”

“Bella…”

“No! Adrian, I don’t want any part of this!”

“What if someone else in the family is next?” said Adrian.

“When I stay out of Cassadine affairs, I am much safer and so is my real family! My children!”

Adrian looked as though he didn’t agree.

“Another thing,” said Valentin. “My guard following Kristin said he lost track of her in the Greek countryside...just outside the Rhodope Mountain Range.”

“Hijo de su puta madre,” Adrian cursed under his breath. “What the hell have you gotten into, Bea?”

Great. Now her mother was probably in danger. Alexis watched Adrian’s rapid pulse from a vein bulging in his temple. His hands were balled into fists at his side.

Alexis sighed; she wished she could take that empty glass of Valentin’s and give it another fill. She reluctantly confessed to her brother, “Kristin told me Mikkos always took the watch to the same watchmaker in Greece whenever it broke. Also, Mikkos said right before he died that the watch was the key to the treasure.”

A sinister smile spread across Valentin’s face. Alexis recognized the smile from her childhood...her father’s smile.

“I think we need to go to Greece,” said Valentin. “Maybe visit the Anastas family?” He held up an old map with a small town circled in red ink and “Anastas” written just above in Mikkos Cassadine’s handwriting.

Adrian was nodding his head while Alexis was shaking hers in defeat.


	12. Blood, Sweat, & Tears

Blood, Sweat, & Tears

_______________________________

 

“NO!” screamed Kristin. “NOOOO!” 

She fell on her knees sobbing uncontrollably. She couldn’t take her eyes off the gruesome sight in front of her.

Kristin had just gotten home from work and found her front door open. She ran inside to the devastating scene before her.

Her guards came running in behind her. “Go!” she screamed at them. “Leave us!!”

The guards reluctantly left, obviously seeing the small girl vandalizing the enormous painting on the wall was unlikely to harm Kristin, but Kristin noticed one taking out his phone, no doubt to call Valentin to tell him what was happening.

Kristin didn’t care. All she could think of was the loss of her favorite possession in the world.

“Why?! Why would you do this to me?”

Liliana had red hands that looked covered in blood. She was painting frantically, perched precariously on a stool. Kristin could smell the contents of the paint. It wasn’t that silly washable paint this time. 

And she could smell the turpentine.

“You took off the varnish? You’re using oils?!”

Over the sound of her own gasping breath, Kristin could hear sobs coming from the girl in front of her. But Liliana’s tears didn’t stop her from her purpose. 

Even in her state of horror, Kristin marveled at the speed of Liliana’s hand. As fast as Adrian in his youth. And the preciseness of her skill, the brush strokes of a master impressionist.

Sweat beaded on Liliana’s brow as she painted.

“Why? Why?” demanded Kristin. “After all I’ve done for you and your mother! Why ruin my painting? That painting was everything to me!” It was a spitting image of Natasha in her infancy. Bright and alert, laughing all the time. The corner of Adrian’s face showing Mikkos’s joy at having such a beautiful, healthy daughter.

Liliana turned, jumping off the stool, with her paintbrush and palette in her hands. “That child is ME! His disgusting dream of who I should’ve been. A dream he DESTROYED! Now I just gave him what he deserves. The true representation of his dear VITAL Liliana!”

Liliana threw the paintbrush and palette aside, red oil paint staining the curtains, carpet, and walls of Kristin’s home. She grabbed her duffle bag and strode out the door with tears falling down her cheeks. 

Kristin stayed on the floor crying over the desecration of Adrian’s private masterpiece. Of her vision of her daughter she held onto all the years they were apart.

Blood dripped from the eyes of the baby down her cheeks like a stream of tears. 

“Adrian…” she whimpered. She needed to tell him the truth. 

Who knew what Liliana was capable of next.

Kristin stood to get her phone from her purse. She had to call Adrian. She ran to the foyer and dropped to her knees once more. She dug out her phone and was about to call Adrian when she was interrupted by a pair of footsteps walking in her home.

"Hello, Mrs. Cassadine," said a dark, dangerous voice with a refined accent.

"Oh, God." She looked up. "Jacks."

Jerry Jacks stood in her home and adjusted the silencer on his gun.

"Guards!" yelled Kristin.

Jerry chuckled. "They won't hear you, darling. At least I don't think you can hear anything over here from the afterlife, but what do I know. I've never actually REALLY died."

"Liliana?!" she yelled, worried about the girl.

"Don't worry, the girl ran off without seeing me or your guards."

"What do you want from me?" she asked.

"The same thing you and your husband took from me all these years...Your life."


	13. Consideration

Consideration

_______________________________

 

Alexis watched Adrian in his studio packing his bags. He was methodical in organizing everything he’d need for the trip. He didn’t know how long he’d be gone, so he probably packed more than necessary. Alexis decided to stay in Port Charles. They all agreed someone should remain home in case Kristin needed one of them. Also, being winter break, it was easier for Adrian to leave the country than it was for Alexis, whose clients still had legal problems in December.

“You’re staring,” he said with a gentle smile on his face. “And you say I’m observant.”

She WAS staring. She liked watching him. She loved his body, how it looked, how it moved. “Can you blame me? I don’t know how long you’re going to be gone; I need to get my fill.”

“Hopefully only a few days. We’re lucky to have your brother’s jet to fly us at our convenience.” 

She watched him tuck a pair of shoes in the side of his bag without disrupting any of the other clothes. 

“I’m going to miss you,” she confessed.

Adrian stilled a moment. He looked up at Alexis with sadness in his eyes. “I had been hoping to steal you away to Greece sometime this holiday. I didn’t expect to be going with your brother instead. And under these circumstances, no less.”

“You’re really worried about Kristin.”

He nodded. “Aren’t you?”

“I am. But I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life doing everything I can to avoid my family. It’s not easy to change. Especially because the avoidance was about survival.”

“Trágico. You of all people deserved so much better.”

She shrugged. “The world doesn’t care about justice or fairness. Only people care about such things.”

He smiled. “People like you, counselor.”

“People like me who try to impose justice in an unjust world.”

“Like I said, you of all people deserve better.”

He walked to a cabinet to grab a sketchpad and some supplies. She couldn’t wait to see what he created while in Europe. The beaches, the architecture, the landscape, the people. She wondered if he’d sketch something for her.

“Will you miss me, too?” she asked, hoping she wasn’t coming across as needy.

He dropped a small case of pastels in his bag and moved to sit next to her on the bed. He cupped her face in his hands and said, “I already miss you.” He kissed her softly on the lips. “This is the longest we’ll have been apart since this summer. It doesn’t feel right.”

She sighed in relief, glad it wasn’t just her.

“You’ll think of me?” he asked. 

“The whole time you’re gone.”

He kissed her again, this time slower. He nipped her lip. “We won’t make a habit of this, right?”

“I couldn’t bear it.”

He kissed her again. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. She needed him one more time before he left. He must’ve had the same idea, because his fingers moved to untuck her shirt and pull it over her head. While he worked on the rest of her clothes, she pulled at his buttons and zipper. 

She fell back naked in bed with him on top of her. Her greedy hands moved over his back, savoring the feel of his warm, chiseled body. His knee split her thighs, and she let them fall open. 

“This right here,” he said, as he lined his hips up to push inside, “is home.” 

Her breath was stolen by his words, by his body. He gripped her tight in his arms leaving little room for air. His hips pulled back slow, and pushed in again the same way. He made love to her, unhurried, firm, and strong.

His mouth moved over hers, kissing her the same way he made love. Slow, sensual, and deep. Exactly what she needed. Adrian rolled his hips, and he grunted when Alexis whimpered and clenched her sex. 

“Oh, God,” she said. “I don’t want you to go.”

His hips kept their rolling rhythm, but his head pulled back so she could see his eyes. “I don’t want leave.”

When tears welled in her eyes, she pulled him back down to her mouth. She was afraid of how badly she was coming to need him. He was the greatest constant in her life, and the thought of him not being there when she woke in the morning, nor the morning after that, was creating a horrible ache in her heart. An ache that could only be tempered with his swollen lips, his cock filling her full, and the deep vibrating groan that resonated in his chest when they made love.

“Amor,” he sighed, wiping tears from her cheeks and kissing her more.

Alexis was shocked at how her orgasm rolled through her body, as slow and intense as the love-making that precipitated it, starting at her core radiating throughout every nerve. And it was a beautiful thing when her orgasm triggered his. Her pleasure was his pleasure. 

She didn’t notice she was still crying afterward until her body shook with a sob. She even didn’t know why she was crying. There was just too much going on in their lives, and the love-making must’ve made her emotional. 

“Está bien. It’s ok,” he said through ragged breaths. He pulled her tighter against him, letting the weight of his body calm and comfort her.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so emotional.”

“I feel the same way, Alexis. I don’t want to be away from you. This doesn’t feel like the right time. And when I look in our future, I don’t ever see a ‘right time’ for us to be apart.”

“Isn’t it crazy for us to be so codependent on each other at this stage of our lives?”

He laughed, “I know crazy, hermosa, and this isn’t it.”

She blushed. Maybe crazy wasn’t the right word.

“You’ve had a lot of loss in your life,” he said. “Your mom, your sister, brother, countless friends, and now your father. My leaving, even if only temporary, is triggering old loss.”

She doubted that. She’d recovered from most of those losses, and the others were ones that hadn’t affected her much in the first place, like her father. But she didn’t want to spend her last moments with Adrian talking about how ‘fine’ she was over old losses. 

Then a thought hit her. “Is it triggering old losses for you?”

He nodded. “I think it must be. My desperation to be near you is far beyond rational for the situation. All I can think of right now is finding a way to tie us together so we’ll never be apart again. I’m only going away for a few days, yet I want to anchor myself to you so you’ll never be out of my sight.”

She chuckled and took a deep breath. He rolled onto his side so his weight wouldn’t crush her. 

“You’re not thinking of tying me to you like an old ball and chain, are you?” said Alexis

He smiled, but she could tell he was dead serious when he said, “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. You’d make a lovely ball and chain. Or maybe I could be yours.”

Her jaw dropped. Was he really saying what she thought he was saying? 

“Adrian,” she huffed a laugh.

Her heart was racing wondering if he was planning to ask…Sometimes, the way he talked made her certain he was thinking about it...

But he just smiled and kissed her. The moment passed without any questions asked. His lips were a delightful consolation prize.

She wondered what she would’ve said if he did ask. Rationally, it made no sense for a woman in her situation to get married. She didn’t need money, a title, security. Was binding herself legally and symbolically to Adrian a good enough reason to get married? 

But to be Adrian Camilo’s wife...It wasn’t a painful thought.

_______________________________

 

It took Adrian far longer to tear himself away from Alexis than he anticipated. His lips just didn’t want to leave her. Finally, he was able to walk her to the parking garage and make sure she got in her car safely to drive home before he took off to the airport. 

Before he left to meet Valentin, he picked up his phone and searched through his old text messages. He found what he was looking for, a number that only sent one text of picture of the defaced “Unarmed Boxer.” He called the number the text came from.

“Natalie Lara, how can I help you?”

“Natalie? Hi. It’s Adrian Camilo.”

“How can I help you, sir?”

“I need your help with a surprise for Alexis…”


End file.
